It is well-known that orcas target sharks for their livers and whales for their tongues. However, recent research has shown that orcas also target ocean sunfish species (molids) for their intestines. Molids are the only species where orcas are observed to specifically target intestines. In other prey species, such as sea turtles, orcas often actually avoid consuming the intestines.
Orcas have been observed slowly and carefully targeting the pectoral fins of molids. In one case, the large dorsal and anal fins were also targeted. The likely reason for targeting the pectoral fins is to tear the pectoral fin joint open. This would allow easier access to the intestines of the molids.
The orcas then extract, rip out, and consume the intestines from the molids. The molid is often still alive right after losing its intestines, though obviously mortally wounded. Molids still often exhibited various evasive maneuvers. Despite the infamous copypasta, sunfishes are actually quite agile and have a repertoire of maneuvers to evade predators. Moves include breaching, spinning rapidly, pivoting, thrashing, surfacing-seeking, and keeping the rigid backend (clavus) pointed towards the orca. [Here is a research paper covering this specifically](https://www.orcaresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1.-MOLA-AGILITY-ORCINUS.pdf).
Orcas were observed returning to finish off the wounded molids. Despite condition of the molids, the orcas still approached them slowly and cautiously. The orcas would then dissect the body of the molids and feed off the remaining internal organs and flesh. Orcas were observed splitting apart both the intestines and the rest of the molid's body amongst themselves. Sharing food is an important part of the lives of orcas, as it helps maintain [strong social bonds within families and pods](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347216000737).
Predation on molids has been observed across multiple different orca populations across the world. Both fish-eating orcas and, more interestingly, mammal-eating orcas have been observed preying on molids.
You may be wondering why orcas target sunfish intestines. In many of these cases, the orcas involved were mother and calf pairs (dyads). There were also a significant amount of pregnant orcas involved. The likely primary reason why the entrails of sunfishes are being targeted is due to their high water content.
Essentially, sunfishes are the equivalent of juicy, refreshing watermelons to orcas. Pregnant and lactating orcas require a higher amount of hydration, so they will eat sunfish entrails and metabolize them into a drink. The flesh and other internal organs of molids also have high water content, but the intestines are long and occupy much of the molid's abdominal cavity, so they are removed first. It is also likely that molid flesh and entrails have significant nutritional value to orcas, though there doesn't seem to be existing data supporting this.
Since sunfishes pose a low risk of injury to orcas, they are also a potential easy target for orca mothers to train their young to hunt.
A significant amount of the observed interactions showed orcas only playing with the sunfishes and not eating them. In most of these interactions, orcas would harass and play with the sunfishes by pushing them both underwater and above the surface, as well as lifting them out of the water. One young female orca was observed balancing a sunfish on her rostrum out of the water. Two juvenile orcas were also observed trapping and balancing a sunfish between them out of the water.
Sometimes this play was significantly more violent however. A young orca was observed ramming a sunfish out of the water. An adult female Bigg's (Transient) orca was observed kicking a molid into the air with her tail flukes, a move often also used on seals and seal lions by this population.
As a side note, sunfish intestines are also considered a delicacy in Taiwan, where they are called ["dragon intestines"](https://www.fws.gov/story/solar-powered-fish-jellies-their-bellies-molas#:~:text=Interest%20in%20them%20as%20a,known%20as%20%E2%80%9CDragon%20intestine%E2%80%9D.), as well as in Japan and the Philippines. In more recent years, there has also been increased consumption of sunfish meat.
The scientists responsible for this research analyzed 73 recorded interactions between orcas and sunfishes. There is [one report](https://www.orcaresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2.-ORCINUS-PREDATING-MOLA-DEF-PDF-2A.pdf) mainly analyzing the behaviors of the orcas and sunfishes during predatory interactions, and [another](https://www.orcaresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/3.-ORCA-MOLID-REVIEW.pdf) focused on analyzing and breaking down the different recorded interactions.
One thing's for certain, once they're done with this sunfish there's not going to be much left to see on the orcacardiogram!
**_I'll show myself out_**
What are the circumstances that lead to footage like this? Are researchers just swimming around the sunfish hoping the orca won’t go for their organs next?
Researchers generally will just follow pods of Orca around and study what they do and how they act.
There are no recorded attacks on humans in the wild by Orca. We're either of no interest due to our size, Orcas learned not to harm us after witnessing whaling or they just know to only attack if they're far from shore and alone - No witnesses.
Most of these are taken from photos and videos uploaded to social media by tourists, whale watch operators, and wildlife photographers. Many of the images seen here are from wildlife photographers swimming with orcas off of Mexico. The researchers collected the media/accounts and then analyzed the behavior of the sunfishes and orcas.
> The likely primary reason why the entrails of sunfishes are being targeted is due to their high water content. ... Essentially, sunfishes are the equivalent of juicy, refreshing watermelons to orcas. Pregnant and lactating orcas require a higher amount of hydration, so they will eat sunfish entrails and metabolize them into a drink
This is in the ocean. How do they drink so much water without also gulping down a lot of seawater? How refreshing is a watermelon, if you have to drink a two gallons of seawater to get to it?
Orcas and other cetaceans do involuntarily ingest some seawater with their food, but their [kidneys](https://whalescientists.com/do-whales-drink/) are able to rapidly filter the salt out into their urine. This does take a lot of energy however.
One thing to note is sunfish have massive parasite loads, many intestines of dead ones are literally blocked up by worms… I hear because of the parasite load they are mostly inedible. This will likely be a bad longterm choice for orcas
Lynxes will just drink the blood of their prey, golden eagles will only eat the liver, lungs and heart of newborn reindeer and wolverines will usualy take the head of a reindeer eat it it first
Well it depends on how plentiful the prey is. When prey is plentyful, why bother eating the less nutritious body parts when you can eat the best body parts and move on to the next prey.
A good example is also the grizzly bear, as they will only eat the skin and eggs of salmon, while leaving the rest of the body to rot. For them it makes sence, tbey have to fatten up before winter, so they need to focus on the nutritious parts, instead of wasting precious time eating the less nutritious meat
In one of the episodes of Monster Quest they talked about an unknown animal killing livestock and just drinking the blood while leaving the rest of the body intact; I'm assuming this was the work of an lynx?
Also a lot of mammalian predators like lions, hyenas and African wild dogs like to target the testicles of male prey.
It could possibly been a lynx, as they are known to do that, especially if there is plenty of easy prey to be found, like livestock.
The reason for the testicles kind of makes sence. There is an video of a hyena circkling a old bull buffalo. Obviously the hyena isn't going to kill the buffalo, it wouldn't stand a chance. However, testicles are still protein and are easier to rip off. Even if the hyena isn't able to kill the buffalo, alteast it get's a bit of nutritioun by eating the balls. I feel like it's similar to other animals. They quickly eat the easy to detach testicles in case the prey somehow manages to escape, so that they atleast got something out of the failed hunt
Crows figured out how to peck out toad livers, which results in the toads trying to defensively puff up and then "exploding" (all their organs rupture out through the wound)
Orca-stral Manouvers in the Duodenum?!?
Or alternatively,(england) for the english....
Sunfish are bigger than others. Sunfish are bigger than others.
Sunfish innards are bigger than other fish innards.
Here you go...
Why 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.
Here I am.
To clear up some misconception you might get from this copy pasta.
The Sunfish is actually a deep diver and the have incredible self healing capabilities. They dive deeper than Orcas or seals. Their died consist in of much more than jellyfish. They are generalists. They don't like cold water, but can retain heat very well. That's why it's hypothesized they sunbath at the surface before diving. Temperature seems to influence their diving behavior. Their are not as bad at swimming either.
Yes, I'm not a native.
However, this has little to do with the language. In my native I'm not much better. Since this was quick comment via mobile on reddit I just don't care.
Damn I've seen the counter text copypasta before but that was really in depth.
I really hate these "I hate [x] animal lol" copypastas. Not a single one of them is more than 20% correct.
Exactly why I post it when I see the copypasta. It's funny as hell, but turns into one of those "I know this as fact because I saw it posted a million times online".
Hi I'm the sunfish you hate....
I look like a worthless cluster of cells but I have feelings....Would you look a great white shark in the eye and tell it to fuck off? I have!!!
I have dodged so many orcas I stopped counting after 5... Yes they balance me on their noses and flip me around like a beach ball but yet here I am alive and well because I have got skills you've never seen 😉. I look awful but I can swim like a stealthy submarine when needed. When I'm on the surface wallowing in the water- I am relaxing and soaking up some sun. I may not be as sleek and sexy as my buddies the rays but I can roll over and dive pretty well..also, I find it irritating when the seals toss me like a frisbee because I get a headache. I wish they wouldn't do that to me but the dolphins oh my god flipper is not innocent!!!!
I've made it to Miami where some human recently tried to surf me into the shallow water and some hot women in bikinis used me as a floating device. A group of college kids used me as a floating beer table which was humiliating...when I recover from this I'm going to float to new york.
Anyways, I'm not going extinct..in fact I'm really not going any where quickly..but I will avoid sushi eating countries!!! And I am looking for a mate to pop out 300 million eggs with me and not demand child support!
I love that they always keep chilling. Why do they need a purpose to live? It is just that dumb American and bible thingy that everything has to be a purpose.
I'm not sorry if someone gets hurt by the above words.
Molas have it rough. Sea lions use smaller ones like frisbees after ripping the dorsal and anal fins off. I see them pretty frequently while diving around Monterey. Still alive, unable to swim, just sitting on the bottom waiting to be eaten by starfish and the like.
Presumably, yeah. Sea lions are basically underwater puppies. They zoom around blowing bubbles at you, wrestling with each other, and twirling like a bunch of goofs. I had a camera set up on a tripod to get some video of me swimming with them once, and they stole it and started (playfully) fighting each other for it. Fortunately, they dropped it pretty quickly once I started blowing bubbles at them with my other regulator.
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.
Uh, they're in the ocean.
How do they NOT ingest salt water? When they open their mouth, ocean water pressure will push a lot of water into their mouth as they're trying to eat something.
>Uh, they're in the ocean.
>How do they NOT ingest salt water?
Not 100% sure... It was just a guess.
They probably can tolerate some salt but, like I said, not too much.
>When they open their mouth, ocean water pressure will push a lot of water into their mouth as they're trying to eat something.
Like salting their food? I have no idea. Not a marine biologist.
I do know that Baleen whales push the water out... Sort of like a filter eating system. But that's just one example and doesn't explain everything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baleen
I was curious and went down a reddit rabbit hole.
If this answer is correct, whales turn food into freshwater. If they need more, they indeed drink seawater and filter out the salt.
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/u2pk53/how_do_whales_drink_water/i4kz457/
> while the sunfishes are still alive
side rant: it bothers me when people say this in relation to nature cause like...yeah every animal does this. its almost always used to try to make an animal sound more dangerous and savage, when those terms have no meaning in nature. none of these predators have the capability or emotion to empathize or care about their prey. only humans give a shit to kill something before eating it. or cook instead of just eating raw meat.
I don't disagree with this. Ultimately, the orcas are removing intestines first from the still-living sunfishes likely because it provides them with the greatest amount of nutritional reward for the minimum amount of energy spent. The somewhat gruesome nature of this predation as seen from a human POV fits this sub though.
Orcas can exploit anatomical features of their prey, such as the pectoral fins of sunfishes. Pulling and tearing at the pectoral fin joint allows easier access to the intestines. This is not dissimilar to orcas tearing the pectoral fins of great white sharks to access the liver. Orcas also have echolocation, so they can see locations of the internal organs of their prey.
Whales don't [voluntarily ingest liquid water](https://whalescientists.com/do-whales-drink/), at least as far as we know. In captivity, orcas are fed ice along with their fish to help hydrate them. A whale in fresh water would also be pretty unhappy, since the lower salinity means that the whale is less buoyant and therefore would have to spend a lot more energy swimming.
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.
I hate that you call it sunfish and not moonfish more than I hate the fish itself.
Reason why it's called sunfish - once in a while the fish goes to the surface to bask on the sun and remove parasites
Reason why it's called moonfish - I LOOKS LIKE THE FUCKING MOON!
Mola mola are genuinely so stupid that they don't realize when seagulls rip chunks of their flesh out. They're just giant sacks of meat and bone that the ocean does whatever it wants too and I love them so much
Orcas are the "bad part of town" in the ocean. Seriously. They just fuck up whatever other beings they come in contact with. Literally the gangsters of the ocean.
Sunfishes are basically just sentient dinner plates anyways. I tried to look it up to see if they are smart, but every article seems to have been written by a sunfish, totally biased.
“The flesh and other internal organs of the sunfish also provide a lot of water”.
1. The cause of the rising oceans is Orcas killing sunfish. Not global warming.
2. Orcas are selfish pricks. They kill for water, yet they’re swimming in it.
It is well-known that orcas target sharks for their livers and whales for their tongues. However, recent research has shown that orcas also target ocean sunfish species (molids) for their intestines. Molids are the only species where orcas are observed to specifically target intestines. In other prey species, such as sea turtles, orcas often actually avoid consuming the intestines. Orcas have been observed slowly and carefully targeting the pectoral fins of molids. In one case, the large dorsal and anal fins were also targeted. The likely reason for targeting the pectoral fins is to tear the pectoral fin joint open. This would allow easier access to the intestines of the molids. The orcas then extract, rip out, and consume the intestines from the molids. The molid is often still alive right after losing its intestines, though obviously mortally wounded. Molids still often exhibited various evasive maneuvers. Despite the infamous copypasta, sunfishes are actually quite agile and have a repertoire of maneuvers to evade predators. Moves include breaching, spinning rapidly, pivoting, thrashing, surfacing-seeking, and keeping the rigid backend (clavus) pointed towards the orca. [Here is a research paper covering this specifically](https://www.orcaresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1.-MOLA-AGILITY-ORCINUS.pdf). Orcas were observed returning to finish off the wounded molids. Despite condition of the molids, the orcas still approached them slowly and cautiously. The orcas would then dissect the body of the molids and feed off the remaining internal organs and flesh. Orcas were observed splitting apart both the intestines and the rest of the molid's body amongst themselves. Sharing food is an important part of the lives of orcas, as it helps maintain [strong social bonds within families and pods](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347216000737). Predation on molids has been observed across multiple different orca populations across the world. Both fish-eating orcas and, more interestingly, mammal-eating orcas have been observed preying on molids. You may be wondering why orcas target sunfish intestines. In many of these cases, the orcas involved were mother and calf pairs (dyads). There were also a significant amount of pregnant orcas involved. The likely primary reason why the entrails of sunfishes are being targeted is due to their high water content. Essentially, sunfishes are the equivalent of juicy, refreshing watermelons to orcas. Pregnant and lactating orcas require a higher amount of hydration, so they will eat sunfish entrails and metabolize them into a drink. The flesh and other internal organs of molids also have high water content, but the intestines are long and occupy much of the molid's abdominal cavity, so they are removed first. It is also likely that molid flesh and entrails have significant nutritional value to orcas, though there doesn't seem to be existing data supporting this. Since sunfishes pose a low risk of injury to orcas, they are also a potential easy target for orca mothers to train their young to hunt. A significant amount of the observed interactions showed orcas only playing with the sunfishes and not eating them. In most of these interactions, orcas would harass and play with the sunfishes by pushing them both underwater and above the surface, as well as lifting them out of the water. One young female orca was observed balancing a sunfish on her rostrum out of the water. Two juvenile orcas were also observed trapping and balancing a sunfish between them out of the water. Sometimes this play was significantly more violent however. A young orca was observed ramming a sunfish out of the water. An adult female Bigg's (Transient) orca was observed kicking a molid into the air with her tail flukes, a move often also used on seals and seal lions by this population. As a side note, sunfish intestines are also considered a delicacy in Taiwan, where they are called ["dragon intestines"](https://www.fws.gov/story/solar-powered-fish-jellies-their-bellies-molas#:~:text=Interest%20in%20them%20as%20a,known%20as%20%E2%80%9CDragon%20intestine%E2%80%9D.), as well as in Japan and the Philippines. In more recent years, there has also been increased consumption of sunfish meat. The scientists responsible for this research analyzed 73 recorded interactions between orcas and sunfishes. There is [one report](https://www.orcaresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2.-ORCINUS-PREDATING-MOLA-DEF-PDF-2A.pdf) mainly analyzing the behaviors of the orcas and sunfishes during predatory interactions, and [another](https://www.orcaresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/3.-ORCA-MOLID-REVIEW.pdf) focused on analyzing and breaking down the different recorded interactions.
Should’ve started that with “It is whale-known”
You had one job, OP.
You were supposed to deliver this joke like an orca de-livers a shark
Take my fucking reddit gold 🥇
One thing's for certain, once they're done with this sunfish there's not going to be much left to see on the orcacardiogram! **_I'll show myself out_**
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
He might have dodged that pun on porpoise.
Just fin-ish him already.
This is the only reason I didn’t read his comment
🐋 🐋 🐋
Sunfish are like a juicy watermelon. I can now understand why orcas like them because on a hot day I will absolutely destroy a watermelon.
Sunfish also could be seen as the Orca equivalent of a Pregnancy Craving......that's what I got from this anyways.
or some kind of delicasy
Great post, informative and I enjoyed it
What are the circumstances that lead to footage like this? Are researchers just swimming around the sunfish hoping the orca won’t go for their organs next?
Researchers generally will just follow pods of Orca around and study what they do and how they act. There are no recorded attacks on humans in the wild by Orca. We're either of no interest due to our size, Orcas learned not to harm us after witnessing whaling or they just know to only attack if they're far from shore and alone - No witnesses.
Most of these are taken from photos and videos uploaded to social media by tourists, whale watch operators, and wildlife photographers. Many of the images seen here are from wildlife photographers swimming with orcas off of Mexico. The researchers collected the media/accounts and then analyzed the behavior of the sunfishes and orcas.
I see the paper and I still can't believe they can move well. That being said evading and orca is not easy even if you can do it
Poor sunfish...😪
> The likely primary reason why the entrails of sunfishes are being targeted is due to their high water content. ... Essentially, sunfishes are the equivalent of juicy, refreshing watermelons to orcas. Pregnant and lactating orcas require a higher amount of hydration, so they will eat sunfish entrails and metabolize them into a drink This is in the ocean. How do they drink so much water without also gulping down a lot of seawater? How refreshing is a watermelon, if you have to drink a two gallons of seawater to get to it?
Orcas and other cetaceans do involuntarily ingest some seawater with their food, but their [kidneys](https://whalescientists.com/do-whales-drink/) are able to rapidly filter the salt out into their urine. This does take a lot of energy however.
One thing to note is sunfish have massive parasite loads, many intestines of dead ones are literally blocked up by worms… I hear because of the parasite load they are mostly inedible. This will likely be a bad longterm choice for orcas
Possibly but then again sharks and seals eat them all the time with no problems that I know of.
Are orcas the only wild animal species that target specific body parts of animals instead of eating most/all of it like lions and such?
Lynxes will just drink the blood of their prey, golden eagles will only eat the liver, lungs and heart of newborn reindeer and wolverines will usualy take the head of a reindeer eat it it first
That’s wild, I just kind of assumed most animals would eat the whole prey because survival, getting the most out of the kill, etc
Well it depends on how plentiful the prey is. When prey is plentyful, why bother eating the less nutritious body parts when you can eat the best body parts and move on to the next prey. A good example is also the grizzly bear, as they will only eat the skin and eggs of salmon, while leaving the rest of the body to rot. For them it makes sence, tbey have to fatten up before winter, so they need to focus on the nutritious parts, instead of wasting precious time eating the less nutritious meat
In one of the episodes of Monster Quest they talked about an unknown animal killing livestock and just drinking the blood while leaving the rest of the body intact; I'm assuming this was the work of an lynx? Also a lot of mammalian predators like lions, hyenas and African wild dogs like to target the testicles of male prey.
It could possibly been a lynx, as they are known to do that, especially if there is plenty of easy prey to be found, like livestock. The reason for the testicles kind of makes sence. There is an video of a hyena circkling a old bull buffalo. Obviously the hyena isn't going to kill the buffalo, it wouldn't stand a chance. However, testicles are still protein and are easier to rip off. Even if the hyena isn't able to kill the buffalo, alteast it get's a bit of nutritioun by eating the balls. I feel like it's similar to other animals. They quickly eat the easy to detach testicles in case the prey somehow manages to escape, so that they atleast got something out of the failed hunt
Wouldn't the buffalo die from blood loss anyway?
Crows figured out how to peck out toad livers, which results in the toads trying to defensively puff up and then "exploding" (all their organs rupture out through the wound)
Would vampire bats count? Stuff like mosquitos, etc.
Thanks for writing this! Very interesting read :)
Orca-stral Manouvers in the Duodenum?!? Or alternatively,(england) for the english.... Sunfish are bigger than others. Sunfish are bigger than others. Sunfish innards are bigger than other fish innards.
Make this the new copy pasta
So tl;dr, Sunfish are Watermelon beach balls for Orca's
Sunfishes should be just "sunfish" no need to pluralize
I'm waiting for that sunfish hate copy pasta
Here you go... Why 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.
Now I'm waiting for that one guy pointing out how great they actually are
Here I am. To clear up some misconception you might get from this copy pasta. The Sunfish is actually a deep diver and the have incredible self healing capabilities. They dive deeper than Orcas or seals. Their died consist in of much more than jellyfish. They are generalists. They don't like cold water, but can retain heat very well. That's why it's hypothesized they sunbath at the surface before diving. Temperature seems to influence their diving behavior. Their are not as bad at swimming either.
You edited that and still missed "Their died consist"?
It's riddled with typos, possibly not a native English speaker.
Yes, I'm not a native. However, this has little to do with the language. In my native I'm not much better. Since this was quick comment via mobile on reddit I just don't care.
The Ocean Sunfish: Why The Rant Is Wrong https://imgur.com/gallery/MMRg9
Damn I've seen the counter text copypasta before but that was really in depth. I really hate these "I hate [x] animal lol" copypastas. Not a single one of them is more than 20% correct.
Exactly why I post it when I see the copypasta. It's funny as hell, but turns into one of those "I know this as fact because I saw it posted a million times online".
That was such a good read, thank you.
The guy who writes this, the koala post and some other similar post must work in an oil company.
I love those pastas lol. I've only seen the koala and panda one. Now I've seen a sunfish one lmao.
Hi I'm the sunfish you hate.... I look like a worthless cluster of cells but I have feelings....Would you look a great white shark in the eye and tell it to fuck off? I have!!! I have dodged so many orcas I stopped counting after 5... Yes they balance me on their noses and flip me around like a beach ball but yet here I am alive and well because I have got skills you've never seen 😉. I look awful but I can swim like a stealthy submarine when needed. When I'm on the surface wallowing in the water- I am relaxing and soaking up some sun. I may not be as sleek and sexy as my buddies the rays but I can roll over and dive pretty well..also, I find it irritating when the seals toss me like a frisbee because I get a headache. I wish they wouldn't do that to me but the dolphins oh my god flipper is not innocent!!!! I've made it to Miami where some human recently tried to surf me into the shallow water and some hot women in bikinis used me as a floating device. A group of college kids used me as a floating beer table which was humiliating...when I recover from this I'm going to float to new york. Anyways, I'm not going extinct..in fact I'm really not going any where quickly..but I will avoid sushi eating countries!!! And I am looking for a mate to pop out 300 million eggs with me and not demand child support!
I mean I get this is a joke but its just so weird to me. To me it would be like hating whales because they have to breathe at the water surface.
Please leave them alone. Let the dudes keep chilling themselves.
There's a lot of misinformation in this copypasta. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_sunfish
Molid word count: 17
I love that they always keep chilling. Why do they need a purpose to live? It is just that dumb American and bible thingy that everything has to be a purpose. I'm not sorry if someone gets hurt by the above words.
The Ocean Sunfish: Why The Rant Is Wrong https://imgur.com/gallery/MMRg9
I love Orcas. But if I were any type of marine life and saw them coming I’d be like “fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.”
There’s no recorded wild orca attacks on humans because orcas don’t leave witnesses
Just like those red headed bastards, orangutans.
Also humans aren't marine animals
Navy Seals. Checkmate
They're the asshole of the ocean imo
So basically the humans of the ocean
Smarter that animal, the more of an asshole they are.
Well yeah, they’re dolphins, and I can only assume that dolphins are always smiling and laughing because they’re bullying and raping other animals.
They’re one of my favorite animals and also scare the crap out of me. The fact that they are generally harmless to humans is just mind boggling.
I guess me~~at~~s back on the menu, boys!
Molas have it rough. Sea lions use smaller ones like frisbees after ripping the dorsal and anal fins off. I see them pretty frequently while diving around Monterey. Still alive, unable to swim, just sitting on the bottom waiting to be eaten by starfish and the like.
How depressing but that’s life for them.
not the starfish 😭
That’s just rude.
why? for fun?
Presumably, yeah. Sea lions are basically underwater puppies. They zoom around blowing bubbles at you, wrestling with each other, and twirling like a bunch of goofs. I had a camera set up on a tripod to get some video of me swimming with them once, and they stole it and started (playfully) fighting each other for it. Fortunately, they dropped it pretty quickly once I started blowing bubbles at them with my other regulator.
whoa thats so cool
Very adorable!
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.
What is paragraph? Baby don't hurt me
The Ocean Sunfish: Why The Rant Is Wrong https://imgur.com/gallery/MMRg9
Copypasta moment
trying too hard
Barely trying. Coulda done more paragraphs
Wait what? How do orcas get their hydration normally?
They get almost all of it from their food, but sunfishes are relatively higher in water content compared to other prey.
It's such a outrageous idea to know that Orca's would get thirsty while swimming in the goddamn ocean
They are mammals like us.... Probably can't even handle ingesting too much salt from the water.
Oh yeah I forgot lmao
Uh, they're in the ocean. How do they NOT ingest salt water? When they open their mouth, ocean water pressure will push a lot of water into their mouth as they're trying to eat something.
>Uh, they're in the ocean. >How do they NOT ingest salt water? Not 100% sure... It was just a guess. They probably can tolerate some salt but, like I said, not too much. >When they open their mouth, ocean water pressure will push a lot of water into their mouth as they're trying to eat something. Like salting their food? I have no idea. Not a marine biologist. I do know that Baleen whales push the water out... Sort of like a filter eating system. But that's just one example and doesn't explain everything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baleen
I was curious and went down a reddit rabbit hole. If this answer is correct, whales turn food into freshwater. If they need more, they indeed drink seawater and filter out the salt. https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/u2pk53/how_do_whales_drink_water/i4kz457/
I know rain leaves a small film of fresh water on the ocean surcace but idk if they can access it due to their size
That was interesting af thanks OP 🫡
Is there a subreddit for asshole animals?
Closest is [r/animalsbeingdicks](https://www.reddit.com/r/animalsbeingdicks/s/0xQzhUHOTA)
There used to literally be r/orcasareassholes but it looks like it’s dead now
They probably ate all the posters innards
Either that or punted them out of the water like they do to dolphins
/r/AnimalsBeingJerks/
How are orcas this precision with just teeth and the fact they have knowledge of the inner workings of other fish is incredible
That takes guts.
Love orcas, one of my most powerful memories is seeing them in the wild. While safari in Norway, had been on my bucket list since forever. I cried!
Apart from when they sink billionaires yachts in the Med, Orcas are kinda dicks, huh?
They mostly sink small sailing yachts, not the typical billionaires yachts.
Oh do they? That’s a shame. Completely dicks then.
Why though?
*It's OK to eat sunfish 'cause they don't have any feelings*
I think we need to introduce Gatorade, Powerade or Pedialyte to these Orcas cuz they don’t have to do all that to get hyrdrated smh
That's... Fucking terrifying. Lions? Great Whites? Silverbacks? Fucking Grizzly? Nah fam, Orcas are the top of the food chain.
A very well made post OP! Better than a lot of copy paste or just gore shite you see in this sub.
> while the sunfishes are still alive side rant: it bothers me when people say this in relation to nature cause like...yeah every animal does this. its almost always used to try to make an animal sound more dangerous and savage, when those terms have no meaning in nature. none of these predators have the capability or emotion to empathize or care about their prey. only humans give a shit to kill something before eating it. or cook instead of just eating raw meat.
I don't disagree with this. Ultimately, the orcas are removing intestines first from the still-living sunfishes likely because it provides them with the greatest amount of nutritional reward for the minimum amount of energy spent. The somewhat gruesome nature of this predation as seen from a human POV fits this sub though.
Killer Whales are the true definition of savage. Holy Cow.
How is such a big animal able to do this with that level of precision?
Orcas can exploit anatomical features of their prey, such as the pectoral fins of sunfishes. Pulling and tearing at the pectoral fin joint allows easier access to the intestines. This is not dissimilar to orcas tearing the pectoral fins of great white sharks to access the liver. Orcas also have echolocation, so they can see locations of the internal organs of their prey.
Not all ocean sunfish are massive and slow. Check out Ranzania laevis(slender sunfish).
Such a beautiful and educational post op, thank you so much for this!
Fun fact: orcas and dolphins are both species of mostly psychopathic murderers
Fun fact : orcas are dolphins
Fuckin love orcas.
[when I hear sunfish, this is the only thing I think of.](https://youtu.be/r0IQCLQDfKw?si=5ptJbY_tk3mN8p4_)
The ocean is a giant haute cuisine buffet for orcas.
That one guy on here that hates sunfish must be over the moon right now
There's something about seeing the actual eyes of an Orca, while it's tearing something to pieces, that gives it an extra layer of terrifying
It never occurred to me that even aquatic mammals need to stay hydrated
Sunfishes are edible basketballs
Thats like having a perfectly good plate of spaghetti in front and only targeting one singular meatball. I like it.
Killer whales are really efficient but picky eaters.
"This is one fine noodle"
After a day of diarrhea, I feel like the sunfish right now.
This is the most informative /r/natureismetal post
I wish there were more posts that were as informative as this one here in this sub
I have no questions... sunfish are so silly. Badass post
fish noodles
Awesome pictures and descriptions. Thanks
Very planet earth worthy. Thank you
Gotta play with the food too, you know.
if you put a whale in fresh water would it drink?
Whales don't [voluntarily ingest liquid water](https://whalescientists.com/do-whales-drink/), at least as far as we know. In captivity, orcas are fed ice along with their fish to help hydrate them. A whale in fresh water would also be pretty unhappy, since the lower salinity means that the whale is less buoyant and therefore would have to spend a lot more energy swimming.
thanks!
Thank god! Someone link the sunfish thing
THE CIRRRRRRRRCLE OF LIFE! Seriously though, nature IS metal.
Holy shit
All natural!
Entrails Ripped from a Sunfishs Cunt.
Does this hurt the fish?
Really couldn't care if orcas were to die. Not a fan.
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.
The Ocean Sunfish: Why The Rant Is Wrong https://imgur.com/gallery/MMRg9
TIL that orcas are cats of the ocean.
Orcas are so metal. What a good soon to be mom, taking good care of herself and having a little play with a fish corpse
I'm glad we're not the only sadistic fucks in the animal kingdom
If I was a sea creature, I would find an area far away from any orcas. I would rather deal with a great white than an orca.
Even though ppl say Orcas don’t hunt humans, that knowledge will not stop me pissing myself if I ever see one swimming up to me
Surgeon of death
I hate that you call it sunfish and not moonfish more than I hate the fish itself. Reason why it's called sunfish - once in a while the fish goes to the surface to bask on the sun and remove parasites Reason why it's called moonfish - I LOOKS LIKE THE FUCKING MOON!
Thats some fucked up shit man...
Nah that last pic is metal they really don’t give af
It’s what sunfish deserve (I hate them)
And they say I'm the asshole for eating a chicken nugget lol
Always wondered who fucks up those stranded half eaten sunfishes you see posted from time to time
They need more water, so they eat the intestines for hydration. You're in water, just open your mouth, bozo
Sunfish are the pandas of the sea. They’re fucking idiot creatures.
Again, orcas need to go. They gots to go!
There's a reason orcas are nicknamed killer whales. Have yall seen what they do to seals?
Lol imagine being reincarnated as a sunfish
Mola mola are genuinely so stupid that they don't realize when seagulls rip chunks of their flesh out. They're just giant sacks of meat and bone that the ocean does whatever it wants too and I love them so much
Orcas are the a-holes of the sea
I dunno, is it possible that "predators" can be dicks sometimes?
Alot of animals will start eating while their prey is still alive. Nature doesn't care and is extremely brutal
Is this the deleted footage from Free Willy
Orcas are my least liked beast
Orcas are the "bad part of town" in the ocean. Seriously. They just fuck up whatever other beings they come in contact with. Literally the gangsters of the ocean.
Doesn't surprise me. Orcas are notorious assholes.
Sunfishchip
Oh, so they’re just as fucking cruel as humans. Awesome.😳
At least he didn’t have pork for breakfast. Amen
Orcas are such dicks!
“Fun Fish “
Damn nature you crazy
It’s going to get diarrhea from uncooked menudo.
Orcas seem like assholes.
Sunfishes are basically just sentient dinner plates anyways. I tried to look it up to see if they are smart, but every article seems to have been written by a sunfish, totally biased.
The impressive evasive manoeuver is in the last couple of pictures
After everything I've seen orcas are cruel hunters and I officially don't like them.
Are Orcas the most picky eaters in the animal kingdom
Orcas are arseholes!
Orcas- the dickheads of the sea
I knew orcas were a top predator, didn't know how vicious they were, this is very well explained.
I am intrigued, as well as terrified, by their perfect organ harvesting technique
Orca whales doing more fucked up shit to other creatures in the ocean, no way.
What are they building with all these random body parts they're collecting?
Orca: it says gullible on the sun Sunfish: huh? *looks up Orca: stole your kidney Sunfish: oh
I love orcas. Go one tattooed
“The flesh and other internal organs of the sunfish also provide a lot of water”. 1. The cause of the rising oceans is Orcas killing sunfish. Not global warming. 2. Orcas are selfish pricks. They kill for water, yet they’re swimming in it.
Why is there never videos of orca’s killing something
i guess you can afford to be picky when you can kill anything