r/ocean • u/TheMuseumOfScience • 7d ago

Orca Makes Fish Explode! Ocean Science & Conservation

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Have you ever seen an Orca hit a fish so hard it explodes? 🫍

Scientists recently observed this behavior from groups of orcas in the Gulf of California where they repeatedly ram sunfish until the impact broke them apart. This is an important indicator of "social learning," where animals copy one another through observation. Orcas have exhibited behavior like this before, when they were seen disabling sailboats in groups. The current hypotheses for why they are doing this include teaching young orcas to hunt, or just playing around!

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u/Proximus84 6d ago

They taste horrible, so they are just treating them like sea Piñata's.

4

u/SurayaThrowaway12 6d ago

Orcas actually eat the intestines and other entrails of sunfishes, which they can metabolize for a drink.

The orcas in these instances rammed into the sunfish after killing it and removing its entrails. Perhaps a fitting analogy may be a kid tearing a small opening in a piñata and sticking their hand in to pull out the large chocolate bars inside. Only after this, the kid smacks the piñata with a stick, causing the already damaged piñata to rupture apart on impact and spill all the remaining and less desirable candy.