“Fish are food, not friends” –orcas, probably

Scientists have the first direct proof that orcas are capable of hunting and killing a great white shark, according to a new study published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Ecology.

🤿 A deeper dive (get it?)… A team of local scientists recently captured drone and helicopter footage off the coast of South Africa showing a pod of orcas pursuing several great white sharks for more than an hour, eventually killing at least two of them.

“This behavior has never been witnessed in detail before, and certainly never from the air,” said Alison Tower, a shark scientist at the Marine Dynamics Academy in South Africa and lead author of the study.

• And in the ocean, word, apparently, gets around fast. The researchers spotted just a single great white shark over the next 45 days, despite having seen them in the area every day for weeks prior to the orcas’ hunt.

😤 Why don’t we talk about orcas more: They’re one of the most intelligent species on the planet and the apex predator of the oceans, hunting large marine mammals and fish in pods of up to 40 individuals. They also use a highly-evolved system of echolocation to assess their surroundings via clicks – and according to one study, are so skilled at it that they can identify which species of salmon they prefer out of hundreds of types of fish, including five other salmon species.