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VIDEO IS FIRST EVIDENCE OF AN ORCA KILLING A GREAT WHITE
BBC Science Focus
|April 2024
Tourists sailing off the South African coast film a never-before-seen event: a lone orca attacking a 2.5m shark
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Orcas may not have the same fearsome reputation as great white sharks, but, as surprising new footage reveals, they're more than a match for Hollywood's favourite predator of the deep. Videos captured by tourists and scientists aboard a boat off the coast of Mossel Bay, South Africa, show a lone orca killing and devouring a great white. Such an event has never been seen before.
"The astonishing predation represents unprecedented behaviour underscoring the exceptional proficiency of the orca," said the paper's corresponding author Dr Alison Towner from Rhodes University, South Africa.
The videos of the event, which took place in 2023, were crucial to scientific observations published in a new study in the African Journal of Marine Science.
This story is from the April 2024 edition of BBC Science Focus.
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