Huge scars along the body of a 3.5m great white indicate that it may have survived an attack by a pair of orcas that have been targeting sharks along South Africa’s southern coastline.
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Photos show orca teeth marks along the massive body of the fish, apparently from an attempt to rip out and eat its fatty liver. The images were taken near Seal Island off False Bay, South Africa, in 2017 during a shark-diving expedition.
At the time, False Bay was a great white shark hotspot before sightings started to fall. By 2019, the sharks had completely abandoned this prime seal-hunting spot.
While a number of factors are likely to have contributed to their disappearance, scientists believe one of the key drivers was the presence of a pair of orcas (Orcinus orca) — known as Port and Starboard — that had started preying on sharks in the area and eating their livers.
Attacks were initially confined to broadnose sevengill sharks (Notorynchus cepedianus), but the orcas soon began to turn their attention to great whites. Last year, grisly aerial footage showed the pair in action.
Taken several years ago, the photos of the scarred great white were only published in the Marine Biological Journal last month as part of a study by Alessandro De Maddalena, a former adjunct professor of marine vertebrate zoology at the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy.
Speaking to Live Science, the researcher said that despite the recent spate of killings, it is believed that orcas can’t easily tear open great white sharks. ‘I think the reality is much more complex than that,’ he said. ‘Outside of South Africa, only two cases of orca predation on great white sharks have been recorded to date, and this clearly tells us that great whites are not usual prey for orcas.’
In his paper, De Maddalena wrote that the photos were taken on a clear and sunny day and that the great white in the photos had a ‘massive body, with a wide trunk’.
Years later, upon reinspecting the images, De Maddalena realised the shark had several scars that looked like tooth rake marks from an orca.
His analysis suggests the orca had attempted to grab the shark from above, with the scratches indicating ‘they were inflicted with significant force,’ De Maddalena wrote.
He told Live Science that it was possible the injuries sustained by the great white shark could have been inflicted just days or weeks earlier, but that it was impossible to know for sure.
‘Perhaps the failure of the attack was due to the fact that the orcas were still perfecting their attack technique,’ he said. ‘Or it could simply be that like any predator, they can fail on a regular basis.’
Port and Starboard have recently been on their deadliest killing spree to date, with up to 19 slaughtered sharks washing up in just one day. ‘This is the largest amount of sharks these orcas have killed in this area in one sitting,’ Alison Towner, a marine biologist at Rhodes University who has been leading the research into the orca attacks, said in a statement.
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Picture: Alessandro De Maddalena