is eating great white sharks...."
Posted on 09/13/2015 6:54:47 AM PDT by 11th_VA
Orcas are known to prey on seals, sea lions, fish, otters, and other whales, including young right and grey whales.
They have also been recorded attacking great whites.
Why would you contradict what is widely known without doing a modicum of research on the topic?
My guess is the "warmer" temperature was due in part to activity of gut bacteria inside the predator shark
Because a dive of 2,000 feet for an Orca contradicts what is widely known about Orcas, as discovered with a modicum of research?
Because I wasn't trying to post a thesis on the subject.
Whatever ate the tagged shark was in all probability not a killer whale.
Could be that, as well, but you’d think the researchers would be able to determine that. That a first attacking shark snagged the sensor and immediately dove deep, it could happen, but I have a harder time thinking that from one shark to another shark would cause mammalian-like temperature change that quickly. My dad spent most of his life fishing the open deep sea. He always said the ocean is loaded with critters nobody’s discovered yet. {^) And he was serious, and I believe him.
Bingo. My thoughts. Orca kills it or bites off part with the sensor in it- it gets picked up by another opportunist and taken 2K down.
(Ping to #145 !!)
I don't know what gut temperatures are like in shark, or large sea mammals but a large sperm whale is about the only thing I could imagine capable of rapidly descending 2000 feet with an intact shark locked in its jaws.
If it was a mammal of any sort, it would have to surface regularly to breath while digesting its meal. The tag would record the regular depth changes. The article give no indication that the tag regularly surfaced while inside whatever ate that part of the tagged shark.
Okay, maybe not an orca, but a sperm whale could take on a white shark, and they dive to that depth several times a day.
If it had the intact shark locked in it’s jaws, the temp would have read the same as the shark’s temp without the rapid increase.
What tooth?
what tooth?
FINALLY someone had the same thought.
Killer Whale Vs Great White - Full Length Nature Documentary
Orca Kills Shark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sudPwDgDuH0
Thanks for the full length (48 min) documentary on the topic.
It's a Nat Geo (Nature Untamed) special titled: "The Whale That Ate Jaws"
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"Off the coast of San Francisco, an unexpected killing challenged the great white shark's supremacy as the ultimate predator when one became prey to a killer whale.
Whale-watchers witnessed a stunning act of nature as a killer whale rose to the water's surface with a great white in its mouth and held it there for 15 minutes.
Even more amazing, biologist Peter Pyle was nearby and able to get underwater footage of two whales feeding on the shark. They ate the liver and then departed the scene, leaving the rest to the birds.
The incident raised questions, such as how did the killer whale take the huge shark without a struggle? And why did the whales only eat the shark's liver?"
The liver is the fattiest organ in the shark. Perhaps they ram it, stunning it, and by holding it (sharks have to keep moving to live) suffocates it.
National Geographic: The Whale That Ate Jaws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh6p0JCobKg
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When I was a youngster my dad brought me a sperm whale tooth from Iceland. The first school library book I ever read then was about that same animal type.
Since an old bull sperm whale can get to 60’ long and 50 tons and can dive to over 5000’ deep that kind of critter would be my first guess for the killer. I doubt a hungry sperm whale would pass up a nice juicy great white.
Swallowing a probe ought to raise it’s temp a bit.
Who knows! What happens at sea ... stays at sea.
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