An adult orca cruises near the surface of the clear, blue water, holding a large sunfish carcass in its mouth.
Seconds later, it releases its prey, right in the path of another adult orca that’s torpedoing up from the depths. The sunfish explodes into thousands of pieces on impact. A younger member of the pod that’s watching on then moves in to feed.
Tourists in the Gulf of California captured this event on camera in July 2024. They captured a similar event nearby in September 2025.
This never-before-observed behavior, reported in a new paper published in the journal Frontiers in Ethology, is known as “ram-to-fragment” behavior.
It’s like someone whacking a piñata, causing it to explode and release hundreds of tasty treats. And it has a lot to tell us about whale intelligence.
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