Videos show killer whales flipping great white sharks and eating their livers

Orcas in the Gulf of California off the coast of Mexico have been spotted hunting young great white sharks after flipping them over before eating their energy-packed livers, new research videos show. research, was released on Sundaysuggests that this orca pod is specialized in hunting sharks.

Great white sharks have only one natural predator in the ocean: the orca. However, so far only one case of animals catching young great white sharks has been recorded, in South Africa in 2022.

Erick Higuera, an independent marine biologist from Mexico, captured aerial footage of five orcas hunting three great white sharks in the Gulf of California on two separate occasions.

in the year the first recorded huntIt was in August 2020 that a group of five female killer whales worked together to push and flip a young great white shark to the surface.

Turning a shark upside down causes a condition known as tonic immobility, which essentially stops the shark after changing its awareness of its surroundings.

“This temporary state leaves the shark defenseless, allowing the orcas to extract its nutrient-rich liver and possibly consume other organs as well, before abandoning the rest of the carcass,” Higuera said in a press release.

Then the orcas dived and reappeared with the shark’s liver in their mouths. Soon after, the killer whales did the same to a second young great white shark.

In August 2022, recorded by the research team similar pattern: five killer whales push a juvenile shark onto its back and onto the surface. Orcas were seen eating the shark’s liver.

“This behavior is a testament to orcas’ advanced intelligence, strategic thinking and sophisticated social learning, as hunting techniques are passed down from generation to generation within the pod,” said Higuera.

According to the study, researchers identified some orcas in the first incident that they had previously seen hunting other species, such as whale sharks and bulls. However, the footage from the second hunt was not clear enough to determine if these orcas were from the same vessel.

Dr. Salvador Jorgensen of California State University, one of the authors of the study, said that these hunting events are the first time that researchers have repeatedly seen orcas targeting young white sharks.

“Mature great white sharks react quickly when orcas are hunted, completely emptying their seasonal gathering areas and not returning for months,” he said in a press release. “But these young white sharks may be naïve to orcas. We don’t yet know if predatory flight responses against white sharks are instinctive or have to be learned.”

The researchers suggested that while this is the only pod seen hunting elasmobranchs, there could be more.

“Generating information about the extraordinary feeding behavior of killer whales in this region will lead us to understand where their key critical habitats are, so that we can create protected areas and apply management plans to mitigate human impact,” said Dr. Francesca Pancaldi.

2022 in South AfricaA group of killer whales were spotted chasing sharks during an hour-long chase off Mossel Bay, a port town in the southern province of the Western Cape.