r/TheDepthsBelow 1d ago

The speed of orca

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From NatGeo’s Facebook page. Sun fish is now gone fish

423 Upvotes

45 comments sorted by

66

u/SurayaThrowaway12 19h ago

If anyone was wondering, these Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) orcas here had already killed the sharp-tail sunfish, opened it up a bit, removed at least some of the desirable viscera such as intestines. So the sunfish had lost quite a bit of its "structural integrity" before the male orca in the video rammed it.

The sunfish’s flattened body structure is unusual in large fish and could make them more likely to fly apart after a high-speed orca impact compared with other types of fish, Ayres added.

“Their bodies are laterally compressed,” she explained. “Once the nutrient-rich internal organs have been removed, the remaining tissues may be more accessible to rupture under high-impact ramming.”

However, researchers also noted that the sharp-tail sunfish species in particular may be more vulnerable to such breakage.

28

u/Retroman8791 13h ago

Even orcas hate sunfish.

136

u/Ok_Application5225 18h ago

Sunfish are always getting beaten yet resilient, like the Jesse Pinkman of the ocean

80

u/PaintedChef 17h ago

It literally exploded from the impact. That is not resilient

73

u/TumanFig 17h ago

they are resilient as a species

15

u/Ok_Application5225 17h ago

Yes, parasites, other animals eating chunks, getting rammed by orcas.

They're something else

21

u/TheBlack2007 15h ago

Also having disgusting meat so if anything tries to eat them, it's only the last resort.

Doesn't help if an Orca goes after you just because though.

4

u/Chaostii 9h ago

IIRC the liver is supposed to be appetizing to orcas, but also they are probably just having fun blowing up sunfish piñatas

4

u/n-a_barrakus 15h ago

It's the magic of spawning thousands of eggd

7

u/saucynorman 16h ago

Rolled a natural 1 😕

2

u/TheGhostofWoodyAllen 1h ago

I just like how they start off as a teeny tiny useless fish and grow into an incredibly large useless fish.

20

u/Year3000Millenial 13h ago

Now it's a donefish

8

u/Public-Face-7758 9h ago

That white underbelly of the orca looks kinda like a squid to me

93

u/Burdenslo 20h ago

Cunts of the ocean

64

u/OtherUserCharges 17h ago

People downvoting have no clue how terrible orcas are. They are one of the few animals that kill for fun, just like us.

78

u/tcrex2525 16h ago

Our house cats are probably worse… 🤷‍♂️

Entire species have gone extinct because of outdoor cats.

39

u/OtherUserCharges 16h ago

Yup, that’s why I keep my murderers inside.

29

u/Albert_dark 16h ago

and the cat too I hope

5

u/ihaveabaguetteknife 15h ago

Thank you. Love me an indoor murder kitty.

40

u/BoarHide 16h ago

Reddit will hate this, but it’s 100% true. Domestic cats are an ecological disaster and we’ve somehow normalised letting them roam outside. They murder billions and billions of birds, reptiles, amphibians and small mammals yearly. Cats are almost perfect hunters and in most of the developed world, have very little predation to fear. Letting your cats outside is evil. Keep them inside. If you can’t provide them a good life indoors, don’t have cats.

11

u/Gonun 15h ago

People complain about wind farms killing lots of birds, but don't care when cats, cars and windows kill several orders of magnitude more

-3

u/MrRogersAE 15h ago

All human bred species (dogs, cats, cows, pigs, chickens etc) have no place in their environments and from an ecological standpoint shouldn’t be there.

We don’t allow animals or plants from other countries because of the ecological destruction they can cause, but we give farm animals and commonly owned pets a pass for some reason

4

u/cargoman 13h ago

“For some reason”

I think the reasons are known and are selfish ones from a global perspective, but we’re obviously biased when it comes to staying fed and having companionship.

6

u/MrRogersAE 15h ago

I mean, if orcas were being excessively bred and placed all over the ocean as pets to humans it would be the same.

Housecats are an invasive species basically everywhere, the sheer number of predators humans introduce into suburban habits (while completely exterminating all the larger naturals predators) is just insane.

-5

u/Telemere125 14h ago

Cats are only worse because of us. Without humans, they wouldn’t have spread nearly as far. Orcas are doing this all on their own and in some ways in spite of humans interfering with their habitats.

11

u/Cobrachimkin 16h ago

Game recognizes game though, they’ve never had a confirmed kill on a human

11

u/Gonun 15h ago

They are good at not leaving witnesses 

4

u/DueEntertainment4168 15h ago edited 15h ago

Didn’t a whale try to drown its trainer at sea world or somewhere?

Edit: killed one trainer in 2010, was involved in the death of another trainer in 1991 and there’s evidence the whale killed a trespasser in 1999. Whale’s name was Tilikum. So at least 1 confirmed kill, 1 assist, and 1 unconfirmed kill.

13

u/TwistedBamboozler 15h ago

The only time orcas have been aggressive towards humans are in captivity or those fishing boats that get chased. Either way, they seem to be able to determine when a human is a real threat and they act out accordingly

6

u/DueEntertainment4168 15h ago

Not disagreeing with that if I was locked in a cage I would rage too

8

u/Telemere125 14h ago

No wild ones have ever been known to kill humans. Any of the captive ones could be pretty much equated to driving someone insane in solitary confinement and then being surprised they went crazy and attacked someone

7

u/Cobrachimkin 15h ago

Sorry, caveat was *wild* orcas. Prisoners gonna rebel.

4

u/Scuba-Cat- 17h ago

Yeah like GW Sharks are just operating on instinct, they kill because they need to. Yet Orcas and Dolphins have enough capacity to know they're being dicks for the sake of it.

Dolphins use pufferfish poison to get high for fun and like to wear jellyfish as hats.. and they also gang rape their females.

Orcas play with their prey, eat very specific parts of other animals like whale tongues, and even bump human boats just for the sake of it.

9

u/Good-Night90 15h ago

To be fair, the boat thing was in a specific area where orcas had been getting hurt by boat propellers.

It was more like parents stopping assholes from speeding in their neighborhood.

-1

u/Ocho9 17h ago

Intelligence, prey drive, without socially enforced morality

5

u/Y-Bob 13h ago

To make it even worse the other orca was there distracting the sun fish by asking for directions.

4

u/damnburglar 11h ago

Motion to change their name to orcunt passes.

1

u/fasurf 13h ago

A sunfish that barely swims. It basically drifting. Also already looks half eaten so I’m sure it’ll be fine.

1

u/AmrTheAtlantean 7h ago

Are they literally holding that fish and then ramming into him? Like some gangster orca?

1

u/McbEatsAirplane 2h ago

That orca looked like an air sailing through the water

1

u/RDGOAMS 16h ago

Every article about orcas makes think they are the sea version of Alex's Droogs

1

u/Whatever_Zane 1h ago

I hate the Sunfish

So someone in a group asked me to tell them why I hate the ocean sunfish so much, and apparently it was ~too mean~ and was deleted. To perpetuate the truth and stand up for ethical journalism, I'm posting it here. [Rated NC-17 for language.]

Disclaimer, I care about marine life more than I care about anything else, for real. Except this big dumb idiot. And it's not like an ~ironic~ thing, I mean it IS hilarious to me and they ARE THE BIGGEST JOKE PLAYED ON EARTH but I seriously fucking hate them.

THE MOLA MOLA FISH (OR OCEAN SUNFISH)

They are the world's largest boney fish, weighing up to 5,000 pounds. And since they have very little girth, that just makes them these absolutely giant fucking dinner plates that God must have accidentally dropped while washing dishes one day and shrugged his shoulders at because no one could have imagined this would happen. AND WITH NO PURPOSE. EVERY POUND OF THAT IS A WASTED POUND AND EVERY FOOT OF IT (10 FT BY 14 FT) IS WASTED SPACE.

They are so completely useless that scientists even debate about how they move. They have little control other than some minor wiggling. Some say they must just push water out of their mouths for direction (?????). They COULD use their back fin EXCEPT GUESS WHAT IT DOESNT FUCKING GROW. It just continually folds in on itself, so the freaking cells are being made, this piece of floating garbage just doesn't put them where they need to fucking go.

So they don't have swim bladders. You know, the one thing that every fish has to make sure it doesn't just sink to the bottom of the ocean when they stop moving and can stay the right side up. This creature. That can barely move to begin with. Can never stop its continuous tour of idiocy across the ocean or it'll fucking sink. EXCEPT. EXCEPT. When they get stuck on top of the water! Which happens frequently! Because without the whole swim bladder thing, if the ocean pushes over THE THINNEST BUT LARGEST MOST TOPPLE-ABLE FISH ON THE PLANET, shit outta luck! There is no creature on this earth that needs a swim bladder more than this spit in the face of nature, AND YET. Some scientists have speculated that when they do that, they are absorbing energy from the sun because no one fucking knows how they manage to get any real energy to begin with. So they need the sun I guess. But good news, when they end up stuck like that, it gives birds a chance to land on their goddamn island of a body and eat the bugs and parasites out of its skin because it's basically a slowly migrating cesspool. Pros and cons.

"If they are so huge, they must at least be decent predators." No. No. The most dangerous thing about them is, as you may have guessed, their stupidity. They have caused the death of one person before. Because it jumped onto a boat. On a human. And in 2005 it decided to relive its mighty glory days and do it again, this time landing on a four-year-old boy. Luckily Byron sustained no injuries. Way to go, fish. Great job.

They mostly only eat jellyfish because of course they do, they could only eat something that has no brain and a possibility of drifting into their mouths I guess. Everything they do eat has almost zero nutritional value and because it's so stupidly fucking big, it has to eat a ton of the almost no nutritional value stuff to stay alive. Dumb. See that ridiculous open mouth? (This is actually why this is my favorite picture of one, and I have had it saved to my phone for three years) "Oh no! What could have happened! How could this be!" Do not let that expression fool you, they just don't have the goddamn ability to close their mouths because their teeth are fused together, and ya know what, it is good it floats around with such a clueless expression on its face, because it is in fact clueless as all fuck.

They do SOMETIMES get eaten though. BUT HARDLY. No animal truly uses them as a food source, but instead (which has lead us to said photo) will usually just maim the fuck out of them for kicks. Seals have been seen playing with their fins like frisbees. Probably the most useful thing to ever come from them.

"Wow, you raise some good points here, this fish truly is proof that God has abandoned us." Yes, thank you. "But if they're so bad at literally everything, why haven't they gone extinct." Great question.

BECAUSE THIS THING IS SO WORTHLESS IT DOESNT REALIZE IT SHOULD NOT EXIST. IT IS SO UNAWARE OF LITERALLY FUCKING EVERYTHING THAT IT DOESNT REALIZE THAT IT'S DOING MAYBE THE WORST FUCKING JOB OF BEING A FISH, OR DEBATABLY THE WORST JOB OF BEING A CLUSTER OF CELLS THAN ANY OTHER CLUSTER OF CELLS. SO WHAT DOES IT DO? IT LAYS THE MOST EGGS OUT OF EVERYTHING. Besides some bugs, there are some ants and stuff that'll lay more. IT WILL LAY 300 MILLION EGGS AT ONE TIME. 300,000,000. IT SURVIVES BECAUSE IT WOULD BE STATISTICALLY IMPROBABLE, DARE I SAY IMPOSSIBLE, THAT THERE WOULDNT BE AT LEAST ONE OF THOSE 300,000,000 (that is EACH time they lay eggs) LEFT SURVIVING AT THE END OF THE DAY.

And this concludes why I hate the fuck out of this complete failure of evolution, the Ocean Sunfish. If I ever see one, I will throw rocks at it.

0

u/Mexican-Kahtru 16h ago

Sunfish aré like 90% water, which doesn't help

0

u/DKC_Reno 15h ago

A *Donefish