Ammon News - Orcas have a taste for shark liver and prey on great white sharks in Australian waters, researchers have confirmed by using DNA analysis.

In October 2023, the maimed carcass of a 4.7m great white shark washed ashore near Portland, in southwest Victoria, missing its liver, digestive and reproductive organs.

Two days earlier, citizen scientists witnessed several killer whales, including locally catalogued animals known as Bent Tip and Ripple, catch large prey in the area.

Suspecting a killer whale was the behind the shark’s death, researchers swabbed and analysed DNA samples taken from the distinctive bite wounds.

The results, published this week in Ecology and Evolution, confirmed the presence of killer whale DNA in the area around the largest bite, a wound measuring 50cm in diameter near the shark’s pectoral fin. Tests also found the presence of genetic material from scavenging broadnose sevengill sharks in three smaller bite wounds. The Guardian