Most adult humans spend their days worrying about things like council tax and not forgetting to leave the hob on before going out, which means that we’re all out of touch with what it really means to be a mammal.
That is, a fight for survival from much bigger predators who are hoping to have you for dinner, which is the perfect segue into this chilling clip of great white sharks being mauled and eaten by Orcas.
Watch the footage below to see what we’re talking about:
And so the hunter becomes the hunted.
Cases of orcas attacking great white sharks is something which marine biologists have known about for years – however, this clip from The Ecological Society of America is one of the first times which it has been caught on camera in such detail.
“This behaviour has never been witnessed in detail before, and certainly never from the air,” said lead author Alison Towner, a senior shark scientist at Marine Dynamics Academy in Gansbaai, South Africa.
“Killer whales are highly intelligent and social animals,” marine mammal specialist and study co-author Dr Simon Elwen, Director of Sea Search and a research associate at Stellenbosch University added.
Orcas have been reminding great white sharks who’s top of the food chain (Sea Search Research and Conservation)
“Their group hunting methods make them incredibly effective predators.”
In March last year it was reported that Starboard was responsible for the world’s first recorded orca on shark solo kill. According to the New Scientist, this development shows that orcas no longer need to hunt in packs to be successful as predators.
And this is behaviour which is on the rise among orcas in general, not just in South Africa, but globally.
Later that month, National Geographic published footage showing an orca grandmother named Sophia taking down a great white shark and bringing it back to feed her family.
Looking for his next shark? (Getty Stock Images)
The predatory orca behaviour has even had a wider knock on effect on marine ecosystems, with The Guardian reporting earlier this year that orca attacks are believed to have decimated great white populations in Gansbaai on the Western Cape of South Africa.
Gansbaai had a population of around 1,000 sharks a decade ago, however, this has since dwindled as orca attacks have either killed off sharks in the region and send survivors fleeing.
