FWIW, Orca pods in and around New Zealand have been filmed doing the exact same thing with sting rays. When flipped upside down, rays go into tonic immobility.
Here's a video from this in 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqimOYOQjJ8
And a guy with way bigger balls than me demonstrating it on a shark underwater:
Humans have been observing Orcas for a tiny sliver of their existence. Orcas discovering a major new behavior just when we happen to have the means of observing them seems breathtakingly unlikely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1VEwsI4SlY
And better (but long):
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_Austral...
I'll have a look for a source if I can later.
i wouldn't be so sure of that. of course just because we witness doing them something for the first time doesn't mean that is their first time doing that thing, but the mammal-eating orcas are rather adaptable animals are obviously extremely intelligent. due to receding ice barriers, orcas are now eating beluga whales, stealing from polar bears, which is a previously unknown prey for them. also, orcas were well known to be aiding fisherman and whalers in australia with documented cases of herding whales into a bay. even today, fisherman have been noted as witnessing increasingly new behavior in orcas tracking down fishing boats to steal their catches. whales off the coast of south africa also eat great whites, and they also chase down dolphins, including massive feeding frenzies off the huge (like 1000+) dolphin herds there. it is not clear when this behavior started, but orcas do not typically eat dolphins.
orcas also have other behavioral techniques that are very human-like. off the coast of canada, there are orcas who visit a specific shallow area to receive a massage off of the smooth pebbles there.
so i would say it's breathtakingly unlikey that orcas are not learning new techniques all the time.
It seems unlikely that they've just learned that behavior in the ~200 years we've been observing them scientifically
Obviously true. But in fact the dolphin family (of which orcas are the largest member) branched off of toothed whales only about 10M years ago, making them only a little bit older than hominids. We're both pretty recent arrivals.
In all fairness, humans have discovered many major new behaviours in that same time period.
I believe the only news here is that they have been observed doing this to Great Whites for the first time (whom were previously considered apex predators).
According to this site, this has been observed previously:
"There is evidence that suggests orcas may use tonic immobility to prey on sharks.
In 1997, in the waters around the Farallon Islands, a female Orca was observed holding a White Shark upside down for 15 minutes, causing it to suffocate. Whether intentional or not, the Orca likely caused the shark to enter tonic immobility."
the woman who swims with killer whales: https://vimeo.com/45809457