Genetic Evidence of Killer Whale Predation on White Sharks in Australia

16 pointsposted 10 months ago
by PaulHoule
(onlinelibrary.wiley.com)

24 Comments

sonofhans

10 months ago

Orcas are so efficient as predators that they can afford to eat only the tastiest parts of what they kill. This shark, e.g., was missing its liver. I once saw a documentary of them drowning a baby humpback whale only to eat its tongue. Seems like very few creatures can treat the world as a safe, playful buffet.

PaulHoule

10 months ago

Orcas, like wolves and humans, are on a very short list of animals that can hunt cooperatively and take down much larger prey. Truly the apex predators of the sea, Orcas can take down anything.

kennethrc

10 months ago

> Visual inspection of the carcass revealed that the liver ... and reproductive organs were missing

There's a joke in there somewhere

RcouF1uZ4gsC

10 months ago

What is crazy is that in the entire ocean, with its massive size and biomes, we know what the scariest creature is, and that creature has never killed a human in the wild best we can tell.

dreamcompiler

10 months ago

The more I learn about how smart Orcas are the more I think the only reason humans can go in the ocean and come back alive is that they choose to let us.

Apparently we amuse them or something.

djkivi

10 months ago

Maybe they know what the scariest creature in the ocean is?

nicwolff

10 months ago

They do chew on our boats for fun, they don't seem all that scared!

e40

10 months ago

Is there a theory as to why? Do we just taste bad? Something else?

jmulho

10 months ago

Here’s my guess.

Human liver: 2,500 calories White shark liver: 2,000,000 calories (800x more)

IncreasePosts

10 months ago

How about humans don't usually go swimming near where orcas hunt.

dreamcompiler

10 months ago

Yeah that ain't it.

https://atthewatersedge.ca/kayaking-with-orcas/

IncreasePosts

10 months ago

That looks like people kayaking, not swimming. And how many people do that per year?

Consider that it takes millions of people swimming next to sharks every year for just a few bites to happen.

e40

10 months ago

Do you know how absurdly easy it would be to tip over a kayak and eat the occupants?

lysace

10 months ago

It's news that Orcas kill white sharks? I thought they have been doing this for a very, very long time?

throwup238

10 months ago

First line of the abstract:

> Killer whales (Orcinus orca) have been documented to prey on white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias), in some cases causing localised shark displacement and triggering ecological cascades.

This paper describes using genomic analysis to positively identify the cause of death of a specific white shark carcass. They already suspected it was killer whales due to the missing liver which is similar to past recorded cases off the coast of South Africa.

lysace

10 months ago

Yes, I also read that. Still mystified about how this is new or interesting.

dghlsakjg

10 months ago

Last line of the abstract intro: These findings are consistent with those previously reported from South Africa suggesting that predations of this nature are potentially more prevalent than currently assumed.

That certainly seems both new and interesting.

PaulHoule

10 months ago

It's another way to observe the behavior.

lysace

10 months ago

That's fair.

Edit: I suppose I'm conditioned by honestly often incompetent activists to think that every new piece of evidence of something in nature is a claimed proof that humans must scale back their ambitions or else.

I recognize that this is not healthy.

anonymousDan

10 months ago

HN appears to be obsessed with killer whales eating great white sharks.