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The Predator That Makes Great White Sharks Flee in Fear
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tzfld 8y agoERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS
- freditup 8y agoClickbait title. Actual title should be: [Orcas] Can Make Great White Sharks Flee in Fear
- phonypc 8y agoSeems innocuous to me. It doesn't give false impressions in the way so many article titles do these days, just a hook for finding out what the predator is.
- chrisseaton 8y ago> just a hook for finding out what the predator is That's the problem - click baiting and hiding information.
- nkozyra 8y agoHeadlines don't need to be this expressive to avoid being clickbait.
- rooam-dev 8y agoIt gives the impression that something new has been discovered. So in this case is a clickbait, you have to click and find out something that is known, maybe not well known but I wouldn't say a secret. I personally knew about Orcas attacking sharks.
- Gpetrium 8y agoI think you filled in the blanks with a 'new discovery', when your brain could have simply assumed that the title would be "A discovery of a new animal that scares even the Great White Shark!" if there was a new discovery. I think it is click-bait in the literal sense, but not in the negative connotation that click-bait is used today.
- bytesandbots 8y agoI was expecting the predator to be humans.
- chengiz 8y agoYes, and the headline writer knows this. If the title was "Orcas Make Great White Sharks Flee in Fear", most of us would have nodded and moved on. To be fair, that was an interesting article, clickbait title notwithstanding.
- kbenson 8y agoThe question the title raises is answered in the first paragraph, which consists of two sentences. I really wish we could get past this phase of referring to every title that tries to gather interest by using a little bit of mystery as clickbait in a pejorative way. There's a middle ground between writing being manipulative and misleading and writing being fact based and dry.
- Joe-Z 8y agoI do not. Calling bullshit out is exactly what I want to see. There's like 20 links on one page of HN for me, I don't need "a little bit of mystery" when I want to scan what I may be interested in EDIT: It's 30 links...
- moate 8y agoWhat about this title wouldn't give you the information you needed to decide if this is something you may be interested in?
- mrob 8y agoI already know that killer whales attack great white sharks. I'm only interested in reading the article if it's about some other predator, but they deliberately omit the identity from the title to force me to click to find out. That is clickbait.
- Joe-Z 8y agoI just want to be able to browse a news aggregating site and have a rough idea of what the article is about. So why have me click on the article only to find out "oh, it's about interactions between great whites and orcas" when you can just put that information in the title. Sure, if I'm clicking on anything fish-related anyway that may not be a problem. But the title as it is phrased now clearly leaves out a key bit of information, namely who this predator is. That's disingenuous and the reason why I support calling it out as clickbait (i.e. "click on this link just to find out what it is actually about!")
- 8y ago
- robotresearcher 8y agoOrcas Sometimes Avoid Great White Sharks.
- nikofeyn 8y agois this a joke? the article and nature says the opposite. it is great whites who avoid orcas.
- robotresearcher 8y agoI transposed the species by mistake. My point was that 'fleeing in fear' is not what the scientists reported. The animals objectively went away. That they 'fled in fear' is editorialized.
- umvi 8y agoThat's amazing that the Orcas have evolved to know how to precisely extract and consume just the liver of (at least) one specific species in the ocean that they probably don't consume often
- ForHackernews 8y agoIt's probably a learned (and taught) behavior, not an evolved instinctive one. Orcas exhibit complex behaviors that vary from population to population, much like human cultures: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/understanding-orca-culture-12494696/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/understanding-...
- GVIrish 8y agoWhat's also amazing to me is that they've learned that they can turn the sharks upside down to induce tonic immobility and make it easier (and less dangerous) to eat them.
- PorterDuff 8y agoI wonder if lifeboats couldn't carry a little device that sounds (or smells) like a killer whale. Maybe sharks are never really that much of a problem.
- tyingq 8y agoThis article mentions a wetsuit with a visual orca belly print having some promise: https://www.nature.com/news/south-african-scientists-trial-humane-shark-deterrents-1.18346 https://www.nature.com/news/south-african-scientists-trial-h...
- wnevets 8y ago>Maybe sharks are never really that much of a problem. Pretty sure that is the case. >According to the International Shark Attack File (ISAF), between 1958 and 2016 there were 2,785 confirmed unprovoked shark attacks around the world, of which 439 were fatal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_attack
- GVIrish 8y agoThere has been a number of experiments that tried to isolate chemicals produced by the decaying shark flesh to repel sharks. The theory goes that sharks will avoid the smell of dead sharks, so a few groups I've tried to isolate those compounds to create a shark repellent. Not sure if any of them were fully successful. In the case of the Farallon Islands it might be that once Great Whites can smell that the orcas have eaten one of their own they know it's time to escape. I've seen at least one documentary where smaller sharks disperse when they hear the calls of orcas. Seems like it could at least be somewhat effective in areas where orcas regularly prey on sharks.
- pvaldes 8y agoThe sound would guarantee atracting any killer whale in km around, so...
- jasonlaramburu 8y agoCould be useful for surfers as well!
- mips_avatar 8y agoMake sure to read the last sentence. I did not expect that.
- davidw 8y agoSomeone's going to read that in the archives in 10 years and they'll either be scratching their heads wondering what it is - or singing along.
- mips_avatar 8y agoI’m sure 2030’s kids will watch dad memes or something to get educated on internet history.
- alistairSH 8y agoI felt "violated", like a high-quality rick-rolling.
- NoInputSignal 8y agoGreat, now my whole day is going to be spent trying to get that out of my head...
- dctoedt 8y agoI had to Google-search it. (My kids are long grown.)
- alistairSH 8y agoI'm sorry. My first encounter with this was a few months ago when a friend mentioned on FaceSpace. It's been stuck in my head intermittently ever since.
- DiseasedBadger 8y agoThe Final Sentence Will SHOCK You
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago>> “Lions, for example, do not eat a lot of impala, but impala fear lions more than any other predator on the landscape except humans,” Probably explains why lions don't eat many impala.
- mark_l_watson 8y agoI had a bad experience with a killer whale when I was returning to San Diego from Catalina Island in my rather small Columbia 22 sailboat (this was around 1977). A killer whale jumped out of the water to the level of the top of my mast 4 times. Each time it landed horizontally right next to my boat, almost tipping the boat over with the splash/wave it created. I laid down in the bottom of the cockpit reaching up to steer my boat and I told my girlfriend to go below decks and lay on the floor to keep our weight as low in the boat as possible. At the top of the 4 jumps out of the water, I saw a black beady little eye staring down at me. I was very relieved when it left the area. EDIT: I bought a bigger sailboat
- Shalle135 8y agoI’m not sure about how orcas work. But in Norway you can dive with them (not recommended because you disturb them) and not a single person has been attacked there in recorded history (~200 years). It may be that it was just curious about you, but heck they might just wanted a snack as well.
- nikofeyn 8y agothose are likely fish eating orcas who specialize on a single species of fish. i wouldn't try that with mammal eating orcas.
- 98codes 8y agomark_l_watson: "We're gonna need a bigger boat"
- libraryatnight 8y agoOn one of the Planet Earth's (IIRC) they showed a seal on a floating slab of ice and the orcas would slap their tails and bump the ice to get the seal to slide off, the seal wore itself out and they eventually drug it into the depths. They're uncanny smart hunters. I wonder if it was curious about you being food and trying a tactic like that? Or just curious in general and indifferent to whether you survived that curiosity? edit: the below comment linked a video which then linked to a producer explaining the exact moment I was referring to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1VEwsI4SlY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1VEwsI4SlY
- AzzieElbab 8y ago"One of the whales rammed and killed the shark, and the duo proceeded to eat its liver" - is it hard to get a nice Chianti near the Farallon Islands?
- pensketch 8y agoDamn that was a sneaky way to get baby shark stuck in my head.
- laythea 8y agooh no. not on here also.....
- JackFr 8y agoI was hoping article was about a new John McAfee kink. https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/1079863420458074112?lang=en https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/107986342045807411...
- dustinmoris 8y agoOrcas are one of the most amazing animals in my opinion. They are extremely intelligent and family oriented. There are some great video captures of Orcas attacking great white sharks by flipping the shark upside down which puts the shark into paralysis and then they simply kill the shark without any resistance. The whole encounter doesn't last more than a few seconds this is how precise and smart these animals are. Many people are probably familiar with some documentaries where we can see Orcas hunt in groups to create artificial waves in order to wipe seals off the ice plates in the Arctic. I personally was lucky to see Orcas patrol the coastline in Argentina where Orcas come extremely close to the shore and beach themselves in order to catch one of the many sea lions which relax there in false sense of security. Once they get the sea lion they wait for the next wave to help them back into the water. It's just amazing and one of the best spots on earth to witness something truly remarkable. The spot is very popular for whales to come and mate/give birth too so it's well worth to go there for a short break! If anyone ever visits Argentina make sure to stop by "Valdes Peninsula" and get a car rental for 1 or 2 days so you can explore the peninsula yourself and with a bit of luck spot some Orcas!
- nikofeyn 8y agoregarding their familial bonds, they are one of three mammals to undergo menopause, the other two being humans and pilot whales. since orca pods are matriarchal, this further indicates strong bonds and the fact that the older female orcas retire from reproduction duties to share that with the younger females but maintain their leadership roles rather than just dying.
- rainydaybook 8y agoThe obvious question is, do white sharks of similar size flee from Orcas or ones of smaller size? Otherwise, there's nothing surprising here. There's examples of Elephants fleeing from large prides of Lions, Lions fleeing from large packs of hyenas, etc. Similarly a small solitary Orca will likely flee from a group or a single, much larger, white shark.
- mikeleung 8y agoOrcas eating just the sharks liver is interesting, they have been known to eat only the tongue of whales, leaving the rest of the carcass. I'm guessing for similar reasons, tongue being tasty and highly nutritious to them. This known behavior was used by whalers who had a pact with a group of orca in Eden, South Wales. In exchange for helping the whalers hunt baleen whales, the whalers would leave the tongue of the whale to the orcas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_New_South_Wales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_New_Sou...