Orcas have been known to slap around stingrays, punt seals into the air and otherwise play with their food. But killer whales don’t just toy with live prey. Some also seem to enjoy destroying the carcasses of their kills like piñatas.

Scientists documentedthis brutal activityamong orcas (Orcinus orca) in the Gulf of California in 2024 and 2025. In both cases, one adult orca held a dead sharp-tail sunfish (Masturus lanceolatus) steady while another slammed into it with enough force to smash the sunfish into smithereens.

Killer whales might pulverize sunfish to break them into smaller bites for young orcas – or they might just find it entertaining, researchers report July 23 inFrontiers in Ethology.

“I was absolutely gobsmacked” by this behavior, says Marianne Nyegaard, a marine biologist at Auckland Museum in New Zealand who was not involved in the work. She’d seen a couplevideos of orcas battering sunfishon social media before the new paper did a deep dive on this phenomenon. “I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen,” she says.

An adult female orca holds the backside of a sunfish steady in her mouth while an adult male orca speeds toward it. The female lets go right before the male smashes into the fish, exploding its flesh into smithereens. Study coauthor Kathryn Ayres took this video with a GoPro off the coast of San Jose del Cabo on July 29, 2024.Kathryn Ayres

Nyegaard is not necessarily surprised that orcas have come up with such a creative strategy to dispatch sharp-tail sunfish, which can get up to a few meters long. “Orcas will do all sorts of things,” she says. “They are so clever at figuring out how to hunt and deal with a ton of different prey types.” That hunting isoften a team sport, as whenorcas band together to ambush blue whalesor collectively make waves to knock penguins off ice.

Orcas most likely annihilate sunfish this way to help feed their young, says Francesca Pancaldi, a marine biologist not involved in the work. After one of the sunfish explosions reported in the paper, she notes, a young orca began feeding on the small bits of carnage.

But that may not be the only reason for this practice, adds Pancaldi, of the marine science center in La Paz associated with Mexico’s Instituto Politécnico Nacional. “Killer whales are highly social animals, and a behavior can simultaneously provide nutritional benefits, reinforce social bonds and serve as an opportunity for younger individuals to learn hunting techniques.”

Kaynak: Sciencenews