Orcas are ganging up on great white sharks to eat their livers

Killer whales in the Gulf of California hunt young great white sharks using a cunning tactic: turning them upside down to immobilize them. Discovery suggests previously unrecognized group may exist killer whales in a region that specializes in shark hunting.

There are only a few known populations of killer whales. eat sharksand even fewer have been found to eat great whites (Carcharodon carcharias). For example, killer whales (Orcinus killer whale) off the coast of San Francisco were documented killing of a great white in 1997.and on a large white corpse near Australia, traces of an orca attack were found in 2023. But until recently, there was only one known case of the animals preying on juvenile great white sharks in South Africa.

Jesus Eric Higuera-RivasAn independent marine biologist from Mexico and his colleagues twice filmed orcas in the Gulf of California hunting young great white sharks. The first, recorded in August 2020, showed five females. killer whales working together to push the young great white to the surface. “The killer whales rammed the great white bird to turn it upside down,” says Higuera-Rivas.

This maneuver put the shark into a state of temporary paralysis called tonic immobility. This also allowed killer whales to get to the energy-rich liver of the shark, which they shared among themselves. A few minutes later, the school repeated the attack on another teenager by a great white shark. In August 2022, the research team recorded another group of five killer whales using the same technique to hunt a young beluga whale in the same location at the same time of year.

Researchers have identified some of the killer whales involved in the first incident as those previously seen hunting whale and bull sharks. Footage of the second incident was not clear enough to determine whether the killer whales belonged to the same pod. “But it is entirely possible,” says Higuera-Rivas.

Orca populations vary greatly depending on where they are located. “Killer whales are hunting machines. They're like snipers: They use certain hunting strategies, very specific ones, depending on their prey,” Higuera-Rivas says. These results suggest that killer whales belong to a previously unrecognized group of shark eaters, he says.

“So now we have an example of another unique feeding strategy that is probably not shared by any other group of animals. [orcas] in the world,” says Andrew Trites at the University of British Columbia in Canada. However, more research is needed to know for sure, since killer whales may be an offshoot of those found in the Pacific Northwest that prey on other shark species, he says.