Within five minutes, the orcas had devoured the shark. According to the Daily Mail, orcas flip sharks to gain easy access to a specific organ—the liver—which provides them with energy.

“This behavior demonstrates the advanced intelligence, strategic thinking, and sophisticated social learning of orcas,” said marine biologist Eric Higueria Rivas. “Hunting techniques are passed down from generation to generation,” he added.

Orcas are twice as long and three times as heavy as large great white sharks. Despite their appearance, they are highly intelligent and cold-blooded killers, able to coordinate hunting strategies like wolf packs.

Flipping a shark over induces a state called tonic immobility, in which the shark becomes disoriented and temporarily paralyzed. “This makes the shark defenseless, allowing the orcas to remove its nutrient-rich liver and potentially consume other organs before leaving the carcass,” Rivas explained.

The Montezuma Pod

Scientists documented two hunts in which three great white sharks were killed, during regular monitoring of orcas in California’s Gulf in August 2020 and August 2022.

During the first hunt in August 2020, five orcas worked together to flip a large great white shark before submerging it and resurfacing with its liver in their mouths in just over five minutes. Minutes later, they repeated the process with a second young shark, which endured multiple attacks before sinking. “Later, tissue fragments were observed floating on the surface,” scientists reported in Frontiers in Marine Science.

The second hunt, observed in August 2022, followed a similar pattern: five orcas flipped a young great white shark onto its back and brought it to the surface. The liver was visible as the orcas devoured it, with the shark bleeding.

Scientists believe orcas target young great white sharks because they are easier to flip. “This is the first time we’ve seen orcas repeatedly target young great whites,” said study author Dr. Salvador Jorgensen of the University of California.

Adult great white sharks react quickly to hunting orcas, abandoning seasonal aggregation areas for months, whereas young sharks may be naive toward orcas, according to Jorgensen. It remains unclear whether adult sharks’ flight response is instinctive.

The Montezuma pod is well known to marine biologists and has previously been observed hunting stingrays, whales, and bull sharks.

New observations suggest orcas may hunt great white sharks more frequently than previously recognized, but “broader research is needed to gather more data before drawing definitive conclusions,” the team notes.

Future studies should continue monitoring the shifting habitats of young great white sharks and determine whether orca attacks on them represent a consistent hunting pattern.