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Great white sharks are widely viewed as apex predators that usually don’t have to worry about being targeted by other animals they share the ocean with. However, researchers have captured footage of a pod of orcas that roam the waters off the coast of Mexico that have managed to establish their dominance while showing why they’re known as “killer whales.”
Jaws has managed to scar multiple generations of viewers who are largely aware they don’t have to worry about encountering a great white shark in the water but still have some trouble shaking that possibility out of their mind whenever they head into the ocean.
For the most part, there’s nothing humans or members of virtually every aquatic species that might cross paths with a great white can do to properly defend themselves if one of them decides you’d make a suitable meal. However, there is one notable exception in the form of the orcas that can not only go toe-to-toe with those sharks but have started actively hunting them in order to chow down on their fatty livers.
Scientists had never actually observed the so-called “killer whales” engaging in that behavior in the wild, but that is no longer the case after researchers released footage of multiple hunts documenting a successful conquest.
A pod of orcas off the coast of Mexico was filmed preying on great white sharks for the first time
In 2015, the carcasses of great white sharks that had their livers removed began washing ashore in South Africa’s False Bay. Marine biologists were eventually able to link that development to a couple of orcas dubbed “Port” and “Starboard,” who struck fear into the hearts of the great whites they were hunting to the point where the sharks had all but disappeared from the area five years later.
According to NBC News, that duo has something in common with the members of the “Moctezuma pod” that has set up shop in the vicinity of the Mexican state of Baja California, as those orcas have been at the center of years of research conducted by experts who recently published a paper concerning their interactions with great white sharks in Frontiers in Marine Science.
The paper was supplemented by a video featuring aerial footage that was captured during two hunts that transpired in 2020 and 2022, which provides the first-ever look at the coordinated attacks where the orcas specifically target the “energy-rich” liver of the slain shark while letting the rest of its remains sink to the bottom of the Gulf of California.
There is no reason to think the pod has interacted with the aforementioned duo in South Africa, and it appears the behavior was learned independently.
It also notes that the orcas in Mexico prefer to go after juvenile sharks as opposed to full-grown great whites, but there’s evidence that suggests they could have an edge if they decide to pursue bigger ones due to a biological flaw known as “tonic immobility,” which essentially causes the sharks to enter a ” catatonic state” if they’re flipped over.