The predator that scares the big white sharks fearful

Killer whales have a more friendly image than great white sharks. (Perhaps because of their respective representations in the movies: Jaws 2 even starts with the failed carcass of a half-eaten orca.) But orcas are "potentially the most dangerous predator," says Toby Daly- Engel, a shark expert at the Florida Institute of Technology. "They have a lot of social behaviors that sharks do not have, which allows them to hunt efficiently in groups, communicate with each other and teach their little ones."

Combining both the brain and the muscles, it is known that orcs kill sharks in a surprisingly complicated way. Some will lead their prey to the surface, then karate chop them with head shots up. Others seem to have realized that they could hold sharks upside down to cause a paralytic condition called tonic immobility. Orcs can kill the fastest species (makos) and the larger species (whale sharks). And when they meet great whites, some recorded cases suggest that these encounters end very badly for sharks.