Minke whales are spotted playing in waters off north Queensland during winter, but scientists are at odds with where they spend the summer.
Dr Alastair Birtles, who leads James Cook University's Minke Whale Project, says the whales gather off north Queensland for a few weeks during the middle of winter.
"The Great Barrier Reef hosts the world's only known predictable aggregation of these exquisitely beautiful little whales," Dr Birtles said.
But it is anyone's guess where their next stop might be.
The whales were last month tagged with small tracking devices in north Queensland and scientists have been following their progress.
One of the whales, a young male named Spot, has already travelled 3000 kilometres east and is swimming in waters off Sydney.
Dr Birtles, who has studied minke whales for 18 years, says researchers have already learnt a great deal about the whales.
"Their tracks have transformed our understanding of the movements of these animals," he said.
"Up to this point we had only documented by divers re-sighting them and taking underwater photographs."
Scientists were able to insert the tracking tag using a ship called the Whale Song, an Australian Defence Force boat which makes very little noise underwater.
Minke whales, usually about five to seven metres in length, were only discovered in the Great Barrier Reef area in the 1980s.
