In a dramatic encounter captured on video, a group of orcas were seen flipping young great white sharks upside down in the Gulf of California.

The footage reveals a specialized group of five orcas, known for hunting sharks, relentlessly pursuing a juvenile great white and turning it over.

Within a matter of five minutes, the pod efficiently extracts the shark’s fatty liver, sharing it among themselves as a snack.

Scientists explain that orcas, often called ‘killer whales’, use this flipping technique to easily access the nutrient-rich liver, which provides a high-energy meal.

“This behavior highlights the orcas’ remarkable intelligence, strategic planning, and complex social learning,” remarked marine biologist Erick Higuera-Rivas.

‘The hunting techniques are passed down through generations within their pods.’ 

Orcas have distinctive black and white bodies and are twice as long and three times as heavy as great white sharks, which are grey and torpedo-shaped. 

Despite their beautiful, sleek appearance, orcas are highly intelligent cold-hearted killers, able to coordinate hunting tactics like a pack of wolves. 

Orcas have been killing young great white sharks by flipping them upside-down. Pictured, an orca swims next to a shark with a visible wound

Sequence of the killer whales attacking juvenile white sharks on August 15, 2020. Identifying features of the species are visible (denoted by white arrows) in (a) and (b) including the crescent-shaped tail (a). The two-lobed liver is being held by the orca in (c) and the moderately stout, torpedo-shaped body and partially exposed liver is visible in (d)

Turning a shark upside down like this induces a state called ‘tonic immobility’, changing the shark’s awareness of its surroundings in a way that paralyses it. 

‘This temporary state renders the shark defenseless, allowing the orcas to extract its nutrient-rich liver and likely consume other organs as well, before abandoning the rest of the carcass,’ said Mr Higuera-Rivas. 

In all, the scientists spotted two hunts, killing three white sharks, during routine monitoring of the orcas in the Gulf of California in August 2020 and August 2022

During the first hunt in August 2020, five orcas worked together to turn a great white upside down before taking it underwater and reappearing with their victim’s liver in their mouths in just over five minutes. 

Just a couple of minutes later, they did the same with a second juvenile shark, which was ‘attacked several times’ before it started to sink, ‘motionless’.

‘Later, pieces of pink colour tissue are observed floating at the surface,’ the scientists say in their paper, published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science. 

A second hunt, witnessed in August 2022, followed a similar pattern where five orcas pushed a juvenile white shark onto its back and up to the surface. 

The liver was visible as the orcas devoured it, with the shark bleeding from its gills. 

Pictured, an orca subdues a white shark (centre). The pale shark, belly-up in the water, is obscured by the much larger orcas

Sequence of the killer whales attacking a juvenile white shark, August 3, 2022. Identifying features of the species are visible (denoted by white arrows) including large gillslits (a), large pectoral fins (b) and shape of curvature of the upper and lower jaws (c). A partially exposed liver is seen on the left ventral side of the shark (d)

Scientists think the upside-down flip is easier for orcas to do with younger and therefore smaller great white sharks, which is why they target them.

Sadly, juvenile great whites lack the experience to flee as older sharks do. 

‘This is the first time we are seeing orcas repeatedly target juvenile white sharks,’ said study author Dr Salvador Jorgensen at California State University. 

‘Adult white sharks react quickly to hunting orcas, completely evacuating their seasonal gathering areas and not returning for months, but these juvenile white sharks may be naïve to orcas.’ 

Dr Jorgensen said it’s unclear whether the great white fleeing behaviour is instinctual or needs to be learned. 

This particular orca pod in the Gulf of California is already well-known enough to marine biologists that they’ve given it a name – Moctezuma’s pod, named after a prominent pod member. 

This pod has already been seen hunting rays as well as whale and bull sharks. 

These new observations suggest that orcas may hunt white sharks more often than previously realised, but a ‘broader survey collecting more data is needed to draw strong conclusions’, the team say. 

The behaviour is described as ‘a testament to orcas’ advanced intelligence, strategic thinking, and sophisticated social learning’. Pictured, an orca strikes a shark in the belly

Future studies should ‘continue to monitor the shifting ranges’ of juvenile white sharks and determine whether attacks on white sharks by killer whales ‘represent an emerging pattern’. 

It’s already known that orcas hunt great white sharks, ripping out the fatty livers of the unfortunate prey with their teeth.

In 2020, scientists said this may be behind the disappearance of great whites from the waters of False Bay, off of the coast of Cape Town, South Africa. 

Orcas have been observed preying on great white sharks all over the world.

When confronted by them, the sharks will immediately vacate their hunting ground and stay away for up to a year, according to a 2019 study published in Scientific Reports.   

Orcas even target blue whales, the largest animal known to have ever existed.