Nemo swam back towards the far left corner of the tank, and hung motionless in the water (disclaimed: I'm not 100% this is indeed Nemo, however, the other whale exposes his underside, and there are no ridges, so I'm fairly confident this is the whale I've been describing as Nemo).
You can already start to see in this image, how the water surrounding Nemo starts to get murky (PS: both of these whales are female- I'm told by a visitor to the Vancouver Aquarium).
This is the snapshot that makes me believe, Nemo is at the far end (notice the lack of ridges on the underside of this whale- i.e. probably Wake).
The water around Nemo, continues to look murkier, whilst Wake ignores whatever is happening.
Next couple of images are meant to show how the water continues to get murkier. Nemo also seems to curl up: kind of like the fetal position.




With this sreenshot you can really start to see how the water around Nemo is clearly getting whiter i.e. murkier- as if something is being added to the water.
 Throughout, whatever Nemo is doing, Wake seems to be quite content to repeatedly swim past the exact same position (nonetheless, I don't believe this to be a repeat of Nemo's circuit swimming).
Murkier and murkier.
 Nemo is still in an un-extended position.
 Really murky...

Wake's changing up the swimming pattern- I've never actually seen either of the whales swim down towards the left front corner- interesting.


 Nemo's changed position slightly.
 You can really start to see the murkiness spread out in wisps from Nemo (who seems to be the point of origin...)


 Continuing to emit murkiness, and Nemo's starting to roll again.

 Curving around
 And another full roll.
 Mission accomplished.
Wake swimming towards the camera.
Nemo has disappeared around the boulder. The murkiness remains.

Nemo finally reappears, and starts to swim away.

I'm not sure what the murkiness is, what I'm thinking is it is probably excretion from Nemo- however, I'm not sure if it would linger as long as it did. I will have to look into it.
However, what it may also be, is a human additive. When I worked at a zoo, every day for the seal tank we added a powder mixture to the water, from above. This mixture was white in color, and would linger for a few minutes, producing a similar murkiness that I've seen here. So I think this may also be a good explanation. However, what would be odd, is Nemo's apparent comfort with staying in line with the powder mixture (which is used to prevent algae from growing in the water). The seals would always stay a good distance away from the powder mixture, however, they are seals (which are known for being timid creatures), thus this is not enough evidence to base it off of.

What are you doing Nemo?

Nemo's behavior can only be described as... gymnastics??? I will most certainly look into the behavior of wild Belugas- and see if they ever exhibit such odd behavior. Nemo is literally attempting a sideways roll. I'm wondering if this is playful behavior for Belugas.





 Rolling...
 Almost made it
Wake seems to be utterly unperturbed by Nemo's rolling. Who is now righting himself.
Rolling is complete: time to continue playing.

Nemo continues to surprise me. I will try to look into this odd behavior as soon as possible.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I haven´t been observing Nemo and Wake for quite some time. Although, at first I still saw Nemo exhibiting circuit swimming (a good five minutes), after Wake came to this side of the pool, Nemo started to exhibit interesting behavior.

Everything was as it usually is: Nemo appears on screen upside down making his way towards the end of the pool (you can tell that it's Nemo by the distinctive ridges)








 This time however, Nemo neglects his usual turn (exposing the figure of eight), and instead lingers near the surface)
 I couldn't tell what he was doing at the far end, although, as far as I can tell his head wasn't breaking the surface.
 Nemo continues to drift stagnantly at the far end, whilst Wake makes his way towards the end of the pool.
Interesting snapshot that shows how the belugas use their entire body to propel themselves forward: they bend their entire spine inwards, to try and move forward (moves them quicker than other methods).
As Wake neared the end of the pool, Nemo moved out from behind the boulder and stuck his head above the surface- I'm not sure if he's breathing, or preoccupied with something above the water- unfortunately, I'm not able to see the going on's above.
 Nemo doesn't seem to acknowledge Wake's nearing- however, they are probably quite comfortable with one another, so this might not be all too important.
Nemo reached what appears to be the edge of the tank: his head is still above the surface. I'm thinking he's either interested in something above the surface (perhaps a trainer/keeper is doing something). Alternatively, he may be receiving food (I've never seen anything within the tank that could be construed as food). However, this begs the question why Wake isn't more interested.
 Nemo is still hugging the side of the wall, head still exposed, the length of time he's been in this position is too long for him to be taking a breath, besides I've captured him breathing before, whilst maintaining his circuit swimming.
His tail is getting closer to the edge of the wall- I'm not entirely certain what this may signify.
 This snapshot, really puzzles me. His head is finally below the surface, however, now he is curved around the wall- I'm wondering if there is indeed a trainer, and this is a command? Although, that too would be an odd command.

Rights himself, to a horizontal position, with head still below the surface, however, remains in the same general region.

Vertical positioning again, with head exposed to atmosphere again- for what reason I cannot say.
 Here again, the odd curving behavior, documented in a previous image. I will have to look into recording of such behavior's in wild animals: if they indeed exist...

 All of a sudden, Nemo seems to be finished with whatever occupied his attention. Starts to swim back towards the camera- what's odd, is that this path is not one he normally takes: with his circuit swimming he usually swims to the right of the boulder.
Wake has appeared again, at some point.


Starts swimming directly towards the camera, this hasn't often happened before.

 Can see the ridges on the side. Still swimming a previously undocumented path.

 Nemo's breaking of the circuit continues, as he returns to this side of the pool from the right hand side (he usually appears upside down from the left). Wake is also seen at the far end: he too, is exhibiting odd curvature behavior.
Nemo just swam past Wake, continuing to swim an odd path (from previous observations). Swimming towards the middle of the pool.
Once Nemo arrives in the center of the pool, he begins to exhibit even more interesting behavior. However, I will write another blog post about that.

Until then.