Shocking New Footage Shows Orca’s Deadly Hunt of Whale Shark: ‘Bit the bottom and ‘slurped in the liver’

A new, startling video has emerged showing an orca violently tearing into a whale shark and gorging on its liver, off the shoreline of Baja California, Mexico. This rare footage captures the orca navigating beneath the shark, gnawing on its underside and causing a gory spew of blood.

Following the gruesome feast, the orca propels itself upwards to the surface, leaving the lifeless body of the whale shark sinking into the depths.

The video was captured by James Moskito, the CEO of the Californian ocean touring company, Ocean Safaris. He was on an expedition to the Gulf of California in April when he spotted a whale shark and swam over to it, maintaining a distance of about 6 feet (1.8 meters).

“The killer whales start coming in and next I know they’re biting the bottom of it,” he revealed to Live Science.

Whale sharks (Rhincodon typus), the largest species of shark on our planet, can grow up to 60 feet (18 m) in length. Healthy adult individuals of this species have only a few natural enemies. However, young ones and those injured can occasionally become prey to tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier) and orcas (Orcinus orca).

Footage of orcas attacking young whale sharks has been captured before, but Moskito’s video appears to be the first recorded instance of such mammals launching an attack on a fully grown whale shark, which was approximated to be 27 feet (8.2 m) long.

“It’s literally over in a matter of seconds,” Moskito remarked. “They came in, they bit the bottom of the whale shark. Looks like they slurped in the liver and then the whale shark just fell and descended down, with no movement — I’m assuming it was dead.”

Following this gruesome spectacle, Moskito and his crew witnessed the orcas launching another attack on a different whale shark. Arriving at the scene, they saw a whale shark “just thrashing at the surface with a killer whale attached to it.”

Moskito identified one large male orca, known as Montezuma, as a participant in both attacks.

“He’s a known killer whale, and he was with this different pod this time,” Moskito mentioned. “He was not with his normal pod. He was kind of the instigator of the stuff, even though in the video it’s a female biting it [the whale shark], not the male.”

Rich in fats and oils, shark livers offer high nutritional value, a fact that has led orcas worldwide to engage in this liver-consuming behavior for decades.

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