Demitri Martin has observed that whale watching is often indistinguishable from watching people be disappointed. But not all the time. National Geographic has a short video about a 1997 whale watching excursion when the people got to watch a killer whale take down a great white shark. (Feel free to make heavy metal devil hands at your computer screen at any time while watching this video.)
The really cool thing? To pull off this kill, the whale had to learn a trick about shark anatomy and behavior. Treehugger’s Jaymi Heimbuch explains:
According to National Geographic, “To prey upon the shark, the Orca has learned how to immobilize it by turning it on its back — a state called ‘tonic immobility.'” Sharks freeze when rolled onto their backs. And that’s exactly the strategy the whale in this film seems to have taken, keeping the shark immobile until it suffocates, then and feeding on it.
If that’s not worth a little air guitar in that whale’s honor, I don’t know what is.