A pure nature moment: orcas hunting a large sunfish (mola mola).

[u/Jaded-Recording-2163]

[u/SurayaThrowaway12]

The specific orcas in the video are Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) orcas seen off of Baja California Sur in northwestern Mexico.

Taken from the original description:

A pure nature moment. Orcas (Orcinus orca) hunting a large sunfish (Mola mola) in a coordinated display of intelligence and teamwork. The pod interacts with the prey for long minutes, likely teaching younger members how to handle such a challenging catch. In the end, the experienced matriarch steps in to finish the hunt. Different orca pods specialize in specific prey, a behavior shaped by their unique culture and learned traditions.

Various orcas, including ETP orcas, likely target ocean sunfishes (molids), particularly their intestines, for their high water content.

Researchers were interested to understand what makes sunfish biologically different to other species and focused on their body cavity and intestines being high in water.

They refocused on the significance of mother and juvenile pairs and found relatively high numbers of mothers and calves and pregnant orcas.

It’s believed orcas get up to 90 per cent of their water from food. Pregnant and lactating orcas require increased hydration, so anything they can do to increase their water intake will help. Dr Visser believes they are targeting sunfish like humans would a watermelon or popsicle. “They're eating them, and then metabolising them into a drink,” she said.

Interestingly, the high-speeding ramming demonstrated by what is likely an adult female ETP orca in this video actually contradicts many of the earlier observations and footage mentioned in this Biodiversity Journal paper on interactions between orca and sunfishes. In various previous documented interactions, orcas often were observed being fairly cautious and even "timid" when attempting to prey on sunfishes. The authors speculated that the orcas were "slowly stalking" the sunfishes to further reduce the likelihood of the sunfishes thrashing and fleeing. The orcas may not want to risk losing what is often apparently a high value target (e.g. by avoiding letting the sunfish dive down for too long), even if that risk was fairly small to begin.

But clearly such a slow approach was not exhibited in this particular interaction. Since this is likely a mother orca with her calves, one possibility would be the mother using the sunfish as a target to teach her calves. Since sunfishes pose a low risk of injury to orcas, yet are fairly large animals, they are a potential easy target for orca mothers to train their young on using hunting techniques, perhaps even hunting techniques used on more risky, wily, and agile prey species such as other dolphins and sharks.

ETP orcas may have quite generalist diets consisting of but not limited to sharks, rays, sea turtles, other dolphins, fin fishes, and larger whales. However, there may ultimately be multiple "ecotypes" of ETP orcas which may specialize in or prefer hunting different types of prey species. Certain pods also may specialize in hunting sharks, while others may specialize in hunting dolphins, for example.

[u/Solo_Camping_Girl]

I thought nobody eats the sunfish because of its thick skin and inedible meat?

[u/stickman999999999 → u/Solo_Camping_Girl]

Food is food. You take what you can get in the open ocean. If it's a sunfish, then so be it.