![]() ![]() Watch rare drone footage of orcas charging a blue whale ![]() Increasingly, these accounts come from amateur observers with cellphones or drones: In one such drone video, taken in 2017 off Monterey, California, killer whales attacked a blue whale, but did not kill it. People have documented killer whales feeding on nearly every other species of large whale worldwide, though most attacks have been on calves. “We don’t have dinosaurs anymore, so for me as a whale biologist and a zoologist it’s an amazing thing.” “This is the biggest predation event on this planet: the biggest apex predator taking down the biggest prey,” says study co-author Robert Pitman, a marine ecologist at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute. In all, scientists describe three blue whale killings, in March and April of 2019 and March of 2021, in a new study published this week in the journal Marine Mammal Science. ![]() The scene, observed off Bremer Bay in southwestern Australia, is the first time humans have documented orcas, also known as killer whales, successfully hunting and eating an endangered blue whale, the largest animal that has ever lived. A few minutes later, the predators work together to force their prey underwater. When their target finally slows, more orcas join in, 20 sets of teeth raking and biting into flesh. It begins with a chase: Twelve orcas swimming down their quarry until it grows tired. ![]()
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