Tourists sailing off the South African coast film a never-before-seen event: a lone orca attacking a 2.5m shark
NATURE
Orcas may not have the same fearsome reputation as great white sharks, but, as surprising new footage reveals, they’re more than a match for Hollywood’s favourite predator of the deep. Videos captured by tourists and scientists aboard a boat off the coast of Mossel Bay, South Africa, show a lone orca killing and devouring a great white. Such an event has never been seen before.
“The astonishing predation represents unprecedented behaviour underscoring the exceptional proficiency of the orca,” said the paper’s corresponding author Dr Alison Towner from Rhodes University, South Africa.
The videos of the event, which took place in 2023, were crucial to scientific observations published in a new study in the African Journal of Marine Science.
Those on the boat watched as a 2.5m (8.2 ft) juvenile great white shark appeared, followed soon afterwards by an orca known to local scientists as Starboard (because its dorsal fin has collapsed to the right). Starboard immediately seized the shark’s left fin and thrust it forward several times before disembowelling its prey.
The whole event took place in just two minutes. It’s likely the orca was after the shark’s nutrient-rich liver, which was seen being carried in its mouth as it left the scene of the attack, swimming by the boat with the tourists and scientists on board.
Later, the scientists discovered the carcass of a second great white that had washed up on a beach nearby. This one measured 3.6m (11.8ft) and had an injury consistent with a similar style of attack.
In 2022, the sam
