Despite the bloody picture painted in the movie Jaws, the real king of the ocean is not the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias). It’s the orca whale (Orcinus orca). These skilled hunters stalk their prey in a variety of ways, from hydroplaning onto the sand to grab seals to corralling fish into big bait balls for a snack.
A group of orcas in the Gulf of California appear to have an additional tool in their hunting toolbox—and it was caught on camera. One whale holds down the dead body of a large sunfish, which can grow over 6 feet long and weigh over 4,000 pounds. The whale then lets go, before another orca rams into the sunfish carcass at a high speed. The collision breaks apart the fish’s tissue into hundreds of tiny pieces.
“At first, I was just excited because I could see what they were eating and document it,” Dr. Katy Ayres, a research scientist from Beneath The Waves and Orcas Mexico and guide with Latitude Adventures who captured the footage, tells Popular Science. “Sometimes it is hard to identify the prey. But then I wasn’t expecting the sunfish to fragment into so many pieces. As it happened, it became clear we were witnessing something special.”
The event is detailed in a study co-authored by Ayres and published today in the journal Frontiers in Ethology.
Pieces of sunfish everywhere
Sunfish are among the planet’s heaviest bony fish species. They move through several deeper parts of the oceans, but come to the surface to rest, regulate their body temperatures, or find organisms that will eat the parasites off their skin. While those surface waters can be great for exfoliation, it makes them more vulnerable to predators. In the Gulf of California, they are commonly hunted and eaten by orcas.
“In general, the orcas here have an incredibly diverse diet. While some groups appear to specialize on certain prey, as a whole, they’ve been documented hunting everything from whales and dolphins to sharks, rays, sea turtles, and of course the largest bony fishes in the world, the sunfishes,” says Ayres. “They’re still a relatively understudied orca population, so every new observation helps fill in another piece of the puzzle.”
These new observations are based on two independent hunting events that occurred about one year apart. In July 2024, Ayres saw how a group of orcas, including one juvenile, interacted with a dead sharp-tail sunfish (Masturus lanceolatus) that the group had previously killed. A female orca held the sunfish by its tail fin while a male orca accelerated and swam toward both.The female released it shortly before the male rammed into it. The juvenile then ate the smaller bits of sunfish that had exploded due to the impact, while the adults fed on what remained of the body, but did not consume the smaller sunfish fragments.
A similar event in September 2025 was filmed by Héctor Franz and had that same hold-to-ram technique and feeding behavior.
A family meal
Ramming like this has not been previously described as a predation method by orcas Since the sunfish were already deceased in both events, the ramming may be a processing technique instead of a way to deliver a killing blow.
“The most surprising part was how coordinated they were. One orca held the sunfish in exactly the right position and let go at the perfect moment for the other to strike it with incredible force,” says Ayres.
The gelatinous layer that covers sunfish is called a capsule, and their skin hosts all kinds of distinct microorganisms. If this tissue is shattered, all of the microbes inside of it spread into the water and change the nutrient composition. The team believes that the tissue fragmentation could facilitate contact between sunfish and orca microbiomes. These meeting of the microbiomes could give the orca nutritional or other benefits including immune regulation.
The ramming behavior may also be a form of parental investment. Dividing the carcass into more manageable pieces for the younger whales aligns with previously observed behaviors.
“It was also really lovely to see the young orca taking advantage of the smaller pieces, which raises interesting questions about whether the adults were making the prey easier for it to eat,” Ayres recalls.
Playing with their food
While this could be a way to boost immunity and help feed their young, ramming simply may be a fun game for these highly social whales.
For the sunfish, the interaction could provide new insights into their anatomy and other physical characteristics. So far, fragmentation of tissue has only been documented in sharp-tail sunfish. This suggests that tissue disintegration may be a species-specific structural response to high-energy impacts. The tissue in larger sunfish species may not necessarily disintegrate this way, but we will only know that from future study.
It’s also unclear if the same orcas were involved in both events. More high-quality footage that captures the orca’s dorsal fins and signature eye patches can help identify individuals.
“Seeing orcas here is a real privilege and a relatively rare experience. Although there are now regulations, we’re seeing an increase in boats searching for them in the hope of getting people in the water and sometimes forcing encounters,” Ayres concludes. “I think it’s important that visitors come with realistic expectations and appreciate these animals in their natural environment and not just as an opportunity for a photo or social media post.”
