The great white shark is no longer the ocean’s top predator who has taken its place?

For a long time, the great white shark stood unchallenged at the top of the ocean’s food chain — a creature that inspired fear and fascination with its sheer size, speed, and ruthless efficiency as a hunter. But recent events off the coast of Australia have shaken that hierarchy. The once-unchallenged ruler of the seas now faces a new and unexpected rival: the orca, or killer whale — a predator not only powerful, but remarkably intelligent.

In October 2023, a dramatic and telling discovery was made near the town of Portland in the Australian state of Victoria. A 4.7-meter-long great white shark washed ashore, its body largely intact — except for something shocking: its liver, digestive organs, and reproductive system were missing. This wasn’t the work of decay or scavengers. A precise, clean 50-centimeter wound near the shark’s pectoral fin pointed to a surgical level of precision, and DNA analysis confirmed what scientists had begun to suspect — the predator responsible was a killer whale.

Just days earlier, witnesses in the area reported seeing a pod of orcas moving through the waters nearby. Among them were two individuals known to researchers for their infamous tactics — a pair called Bent Tip and Ripple. These orcas have built a reputation for coordinated, strategic hunting, and this incident marked the first confirmed case in Australian waters of killer whales actively hunting great white sharks. What once seemed like a rare, almost mythical event has now become part of a broader global trend. Similar encounters have been documented off the coasts of South Africa and California, suggesting that this behavior is not only real, but increasingly common.

Unlike sharks, which rely heavily on instinct, orcas are social animals capable of learning, adapting, and even teaching. They are known to share hunting strategies across generations — a kind of cultural transmission rarely seen in the animal kingdom. In their pursuit of sharks, orcas have developed an extraordinary method: they target the liver, an organ that can account for up to a quarter of a shark’s body weight and is loaded with lipids — high-energy fats essential for survival. The killer whales’ precision in extracting this organ, often leaving the rest of the shark’s body untouched, reveals a level of planning and anatomical awareness that borders on astonishing.

Such behavior has led marine scientists to draw comparisons between orca hunting strategies and human ones. In South Africa, several sharks were found with similar incisions — their livers removed with near-surgical precision, their bodies otherwise unscathed. It’s as if the orcas understand exactly what they want and how to get it with the least effort, maximizing energy intake while minimizing risk. They’ve even been observed flipping sharks upside down to induce tonic immobility — a natural paralysis — before making their lethal move.

The implications of these discoveries are profound. Not only are killer whales capable of taking down one of the ocean’s most feared predators, but they’re doing it with intelligence, efficiency, and cooperation. Their brains are more than twice the size of a human’s, and their ability to work together, to plan and execute complex hunts, puts them in a league of their own.

This shift in power beneath the waves is a reminder of just how dynamic and surprising the natural world can be. The great white shark, long considered the ultimate ocean predator, is now being strategically outwitted by a creature that hunts not just with strength, but with a brilliant and evolving mind. In the vast, wild arena of the open sea, it turns out that the sharpest teeth may no longer belong to the deadliest hunter — that title now belongs to the one who thinks.