A whale-watching captain in Mexico has filmed gray whales coming to his boat seeking human help.
Gray whales needing a little help with their grooming have been videotaped swimming up to tourist boats and popping up their massive heads.
Happy to help, people then scrape lice from the whales.
The parasites, which like crabs, attach themselves to whale barnacles and eat dead skin and scars. It's a symbiotic relationship, but the whales seemed to thankful for them to be gone.
In Mexico's Baja California waters, a whale approached a tourist boat, and waited while one of the parasites was removed from her snout.
“Once I removed the first one, she approached again so that I could continue to do so,” whale-watching captain Paco Jimenez Franco told The Dodo.
"I have done it repeatedly, with the same whale and others. It is very exciting for me," the captain said.
The encounters have engendered a deep respect within Franco for the gargantuan sea creatures.
"I have learned, by seeing their behavior, that there is a certain nobility in them," he said. "They're incredible."
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