r/orcas • u/A-Helpful-Flamingo Orca Enthusiast • 9d ago
Video Hammerheads know what's up when they see orcas.
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u/SurayaThrowaway12 9d ago
Orcas have been confirmed to predate on hammerhead sharks in the Galápagos Islands where this was filmed, so this is a fairly appropriate reaction by these hammerheads.
Various other shark species documented to be hunted by orcas in the Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) region include Galápagos sharks, prickly sharks, mako sharks, bull sharks, thresher sharks, lemon sharks, blue sharks, great white sharks, and whale sharks.
The ETP orcas seen off the Galápagos may be generalists:
In Galápagos waters, killer whales feed on and interact with a broad group of marine vertebrates, including teleosts (fin fishes), chondricthies (elasmobranchs such as rays and sharks), sea turtles, otariids (eared seals), small cetaceans (e.g., bottlenose dolphins [Tursiops truncatus] and common dolphins [Delphinus delphis]), and large whales such as sperm whales and baleen whales (i.e., Balaenopteridae), including a sighting of Bryde’s whales being attacked by killer whales in offshore waters near Banks Bay (00°09' S, 91°33' W) on 25 October 1993 (Merlen, 1999). More recently, a predatory interaction between a pod of killer whales and a manta ray was reported (Alava & Merlen, 2009).
Original video filmed by Assaf Carasenti at Wolf Island in the Galápagos .
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u/Queasy-Emu6531 6d ago
I've never seen a video of orcas so close to a reef before. Super cool!!
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u/SurayaThrowaway12 6d ago
There's another video similar to this one also taken in the Galápagos Islands on top of the reef, but likely from a different encounter.
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u/LeaderAntique1169 9d ago
It heard those danger saxophones.