In every ocean in the world, live the most widespread creature in the world (after humans.) While the seas are full of creatures contending for their place on the food chain, the orca is unquestionably on top.
They are the ultimate apex predators of the ocean, hunting everything from fish to seals and sea lions, to humpback whales, and even great white sharks. And it’s not just what they hunt - but how they do it, that sets them apart from every other animal.
Great White Sharks
In the case of great white sharks, orcas will chase them down in packs and ram into their sides. The blow stuns the shark, allowing the orca to flip the great white over and hold it upside down, which paralyzes and drowns it. And the orcas don't simply eat the shark, either. They carefully extract and consume just the livers, with an almost surgical precision. Great whites are so terrified of orcas, that if a shark escapes an encounter with an orca, the sharks will immediately flee their hunting ground and stay away for up to a year.
Seals
Packs of Antarctic orcas use the tactic of working together to make waves to wash seals off floating ice. Other groups swim in circles around schools of fish, blowing bubbles while slapping their tails on the water, to bring the fish to the surface, where they can be annihilated in mass. They have been seen coordinating hunts between as many as 50 individuals, and are constantly innovating new, often terrifying hunting methods.
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