There have been numerous accounts in recent years of orcas ramming boats—and sometimes sinking them. Scientists believe this may be a form of culturally learned behavior passed down through generations. Now we have fresh examples: orcas in the Gulf of California were filmed teaming up to ram sunfish with so much force that the carcasses exploded into small fragments. While orcas have been known to use force to remove flesh from prey, this is something different, according to a new paper published in the journal Frontiers in Ethology.
“We think this may help younger orcas feed more easily, or it could also just be for fun,” said co-author Kathryn Ayres of Beneath The Waves, a nonprofit organization promoting ocean health. “Orcas are known for playing with their food.”
Orcas engage in cooperative hunting strategies that can involve striking or killing animals—sometimes eating their prey, sometimes not—so the behavior could be described as social interaction, play, or practice as a mode of social learning. Orcas have been observed ramming whale sharks as another orca held the prey steady. Other cooperative strategies include herding mobile rays, blocking an escape path while hunting white sharks, and deliberately producing waves to bump penguins off ice floes.
When hunting species like sunfish, orcas typically rely on a three-pronged strategy. First, an orca will target the pectoral fins, then slash the sunfish across its body to remove the viscera. After that, the orca will use its beak to get at the remaining tissue. The newly observed “ram-to-fragment” behavior might represent a more sophisticated version of that basic strategy.
Play with your food
The first instance occurred in July 2024 off the coast of San Jose del Cabo in Mexico. A tourism operator filmed three adult female orcas, one male, and one juvenile catching and eating a spine-tail devil ray. Just after, the same operator filmed one of the adult females holding the carcass of a sunfish in her mouth. The sunfish had a large lateral wound, so the viscera had likely already been removed. The male orca then charged at the carcass, with the female releasing it just before impact. There was an audible sound upon impact as the carcass fragmented and bits of flesh dispersed in the water. The juvenile orca proceeded to eat the smaller fragments while the adults fed on what remained of the split-open body.
The second instance took place in September 2025 in the channel of Isla Cerralvo in the Gulf of California, Mexico. This, too, was filmed by a tourism operator. An adult orca held a dead sunfish in its mouth while a second orca rammed into the carcass at high speed, fragmenting the body. The first orca swam through the fragments, “manipulating them with its mouth,” while the ramming orca, another adult, and a juvenile feasted on the remains of the split carcass. Those same orcas had been spotted preying on a mako shark earlier in the day.
It’s the fact that the high-impact ramming causes such extensive disintegration of the prey tissue that sets these two events apart, and it seems to be specific to the sharp-tail sunfish. The authors suggest this might have something to do with species-specific structural response to the impact, while noting that the rudder-like tail makes a handy grip for the orca to hold the prey in place.
The strategy could be a form of “parental investment,” since in the first case, it was the adults fragmenting the carcass into smaller, more manageable pieces for a juvenile while they fed on the primary carcass. Given that in both cases, the sunfish was already dead with the viscera removed indicates the ramming is more of a processing technique than a killing blow. The authors also note that in both cases, the orcas had already fed on other prey prior to ramming the dead sunfish. So it could have been more of a game than a bona fide hunt, much like the orcas ramming boats could be playing a game.
“Collecting good identification photographs whenever possible is key: we are still seeing new techniques of how orcas hunt and process their prey,” said Ayres. “They’re one of the most iconic marine predators in the world, yet they continue to surprise us.”
Frontiers in Ethology, 2026. DOI: 10.3389/fetho.2026.1835536 (About DOIs).
