Marine experts have captured a previously unseen and brutal hunting method used by an orca pod to pulverize and eat sunfish, some of the largest marine life, according to findings published in the Frontiers in Ethology Journal.

Orcas are known for their smart and often ruthless hunting tactics and have been observed using a wide range of strategies to stalk and kill prey, but now, in the Gulf of California, researchers say they have witnessed orcas bashing into sunfish with such ferocity that they explode, and that it could be a gory brand of fun for the giant mammals.

“We document how one orca holds the sunfish and lets go just before another orca hits it at high speed, causing the tissue to break apart into thousands of pieces,” said Dr. Kathryn Ayres, a scientist at Beneath The Waves, a non-profit organization promoting ocean health, in a Frontiers in Ethology article.

“We think this may help younger orcas feed more easily or it could also just be for fun. Orcas are known for playing with their food,” she said in a news release accompanying the article, adding that the species is also known to “tear apart prey and share it with other members of the group, including calves.”

Sunfish regularly grow up to 14 feet long and 10 feet wide, and can weigh between 2,000 and 5,000 pounds. The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History has compared their size to that of a small car.

The giant sea creature’s internal skeleton is made entirely of bone tissue, rather than cartilage; it is also one of the most commonly hunted species by orcas and is especially vulnerable in surface waters, Ayers noted.

Her observations are based on two independent hunting events that occurred a little more than one year apart between July 2024 and September 2025. In both instances, the sunfish had already been killed by the whales before they were broken into pieces.

In a video captured by Ayers in 2024, an orca can be seen swimming head first into the body of a sunfish; her shrieks are audible.

It’s not clear if the same orcas were involved in both events.

The high-impact ramming behaviour she observed causes “substantial disintegration of sunfish tissue,” the smaller fragments of which were observed being consumed by juvenile whales, while adults ate from larger parts of the carcass, the study says, adding that it may be a “processing” practice rather than a killing method.

“Ramming has not been previously described as a predation strategy by orcas,” it added. The study noted that the whales appeared to use a coordinated and cooperative strategy, with one orca “stabilizing the carcass so the other could hit it more precisely.”

Ayers said experts continue to uncover new techniques used by orcas to hunt and process their prey.

“They’re one of the most iconic marine predators in the world, yet they continue to surprise us,” she concluded.