{"id":258313,"date":"2025-11-03T07:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T07:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/258313\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T07:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T07:05:07","slug":"jaw-dropping-video-shows-orcas-flipping-a-great-white-shark-to-feast-on-its-liver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/258313\/","title":{"rendered":"Jaw-Dropping Video Shows Orcas Flipping a Great White Shark to Feast On Its Liver"},"content":{"rendered":"

Orcas are called \u201ckiller whales\u201d for a reason<\/a>. These apex predators are adept pack hunters<\/a>, using coordinated attacks and specialized techniques<\/a> to take down their prey.<\/p>\n

Scientists recently captured stunning drone footage of a pod of orcas in the Gulf of California killing juvenile great white sharks by flipping them upside down and feasting on their livers. Researchers described the attacks in a new study published Monday in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The video is the work of the study\u2019s lead author, marine biologist and wildlife underwater cinematographer Erick Higuera, and Marco Villegas. Higuera has\u00a0been filming and studying orcas for more than a decade, but the first time he observed this particular shark-hunting behavior was in August 2020. At first, he couldn\u2019t tell based on the drone footage what species of shark the pod was hunting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018Well, it might be a sand tiger shark,\u2019 you know\u2014one of those similar looking sharks. But I never thought that it was going to be a great white,\u201d Higuera told Gizmodo.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Bewildering behavior <\/p>\n

While interactions between these two lethal predators are considered rare, scientists have documented orca attacks on great white sharks in South Africa, Australia, and other areas of the California coast. Killer whales target these sharks for their nutrient-rich livers, which can weigh up to 1,300 pounds (600 kilograms), according to Higuera\u2014that\u2019s about a quarter of the shark\u2019s total mass.<\/p>\n

Flipping sharks upside down is a common hunting strategy orcas use to induce a state of tonic immobility. The move temporarily paralyzes the shark, preventing it from fighting back. It also gives orcas direct access to their liver.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s unique about this pod of orcas in the Gulf of California is that they are targeting juvenile great whites as opposed to adults, study co-author Salvador Jorgensen, a marine ecologist and assistant professor at California State University Monterey Bay, told Gizmodo.<\/p>\n

Orcas tend to hunt adult great whites because they offer a bigger reward. \u201cThe liver is much larger,\u201d Jorgensen explained. \u201cBut what we\u2019re seeing in the Gulf of California is that they\u2019re repeatedly going after small individuals that maybe were born a year or two ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Figuring out what\u2019s driving these orcas to target young great whites instead of adults will require further research, but the authors have some ideas about the advantages this strategy may offer.<\/p>\n

Shifting hunting tactics <\/p>\n

What juvenile great white sharks lack in liver size they may make up for in ease, according to the researchers. It might just be simpler for a pod of orcas to flip a younger, smaller great white onto its back, enabling an easier kill.<\/p>\n

Juvenile great whites may also be more naive than adults. Fully grown great whites have an uncanny ability to sense when orcas are near. \u201cIf they even get the tiniest scent or hint of an orca, all of those white sharks will flee from that area,\u201d Jorgensen explained. If that\u2019s a learned behavior, this would suggest that younger sharks are more vulnerable to orca attacks, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe they don\u2019t have that flight strategy developed yet,\u201d Higuera suggested.<\/p>\n

Climatic shifts could be playing a role as well. The increased frequency of El Ni\u00f1o events and marine heat waves in the Pacific Ocean appear to have altered great white shark nursery areas, increasing their presence in the Gulf of California. That shift may have presented this particular pod of orcas with an opportunity, offering up seasonal cohorts of juveniles.<\/p>\n

Whatever the case, documenting repeated orca attacks on juvenile great whites for the first time raises many new questions about both species and their interactions. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting that in this day in age when we have sensors and cameras everywhere, we\u2019re still finding new stuff,\u201d Jorgensen said. \u201cThere\u2019s still mysteries like this in the ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orcas are called \u201ckiller whales\u201d for a reason. These apex predators are adept pack hunters, using coordinated attacks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,41189,19903,119905,16345,66,323],"class_list":["post-258313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-great-white-sharks","tag-marine-biology","tag-marine-ecology","tag-orcas","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}