Video shows orca attacking great white shark for first time ever

A video has captured something never before filmed in nature — a lone orca taking down a great white shark.

In a world where wildlife footage is prevalent, and the ability to capture it is so advanced, it is rare to see something happen for the first time.

But that is exactly what wildlife photographers have done in a video that has been seen around the world this week.

The video footage, which is part of the National Georgraphic limited series titled Queens, was published this week showing an orca hunting and killing a great white shark off the coast of South Africa.

The astonishing vision shows the 60-year-old grandmother killer whale known as Sophia surprising the juvenile white pointer with a breathtakingly-fast attack from behind.

In a display of sheer power over, the orca grabs the great white in its jaws and pulls it down.

“Her aim is perfect,” the narrator for the Nat Geo series says as in the footage.

Dr Chris Lowe, a professor of marine biology at California State University of Long Beach, told ABC7 the video shows the sheer power and skill of the apex predator.

An orca attacks a great white in never before seen footage.

“Orca are very smart animals,” he said.

“They’re very powerful and, in some cases, probably even more powerful than a white shark.

“I think what we’re seeing is, is probably an anomaly. I don’t think it happens that often.

“We often think of white sharks as being the top predator in the ocean when actually orca are.”

The footage comes as researchers from the African Journal of Marine Science release information about two adult killer whales taking down another great white at Mossel Bay off the coast of South Africa.

Alison Towner, a shark expert and author of the study from Rhodes University in South Africa, told National Geographic that solo hunts are incredibly rare.

“While killer whales can hunt large prey individually, this is the first documented instance in South Africa involving white sharks as prey.

An orca went unnoticed. By this point it was too late.

“The surprising element was how quickly the killer whale immobilized and consumed the liver of the shark.”

The report said that researchers and tourists from two vessels helped provide insights that form part of the puzzle for how orcas hunt in the wild.

“The incapacitation of its prey, a juvenile white shark, followed by consumption of the liver, occurred within less than two minutes, highlighting the predator proficiency of the killer whale.

“Notably, another adult male killer whale, and constant traveling companion with the first, was observed approximately 100m away and was not involved during the predation.

“The following day a second carcass of a different eviscerated white shark washed ashore in the vicinity, indicating that at least two white sharks may have been killed during the interaction.”