Among the ocean’s most effective hunters, orcas can take down humpbacks, blue whales and even white sharks, but sometimes these efficient predators take a moment to enjoy their dinner before scoffing it down.
During a Just the Wild expedition, wildlife photographer Caine Delacy was treated to an incredible spectacle when a pod of orcas started playing with their food right in front of him.
“This pod of orca [was] slowly swimming around when all of a sudden they brought this to the surface,” says Caine Delacy on Instagram.
In his footage, a killer whale carries a huge ocean sunfish (Mola mola) through the bright blue waters. After playing with their catch, the pod started eating it.
“After a few minutes of this, they went deep and we then saw a cloud of destroyed Mola mola that they must have all smashed together,” he says.
In his post, Delacy wonders what might be going on. "Perhaps they were showing their younger members of the pod what to do?” he says. “Perhaps they enjoy playing with their food?”
A scientific paper published in Frontiers in Ethology in 2026 suggests he might have the right idea. The study documented two instances of orcas ramming sunfish like this to make them burst into tiny pieces and suggests a few possible reasons behind this.
The strange behaviour “may have multiple functions, including facilitating foraging for juvenile orcas or reflecting play behaviour,” the authors write in the study. “The observed coordination between adults suggests a high degree of cooperative precision and could represent roles in prey processing, social interaction and learning.”
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Top image: Orca carrying sunfish. Credit: Caine Delacy
