hypothetical: 100 great white sharks hunting a blue whale

[sam1]

The purpose of this is perspective and perception related.
Do you think a hypothetical pod of 100 average sized(1000kg) great white sharks could successfully hunt down an average adult blue whale(100 000kg)?
My opinion is that they could not, simply because the whale would out swim them.
Even if they would be able to, I imagine it taking days, maybe even weeks.
Discuss.

[dinosauria101]

I see, at the end of a very long struggle, a maimed whale and 100 sharks almost exhausted to death.
Both sides would likely perish.

[sam1]

Apr 4, 2019 15:40:33 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

I see, at the end of a very long struggle, a maimed whale and 100 sharks almost exhausted to death.
Both sides would likely perish.

In order to continuously maim a whale, sharks would need to be able to keep up with it in the first place.
And they aren't. 
Aerobic potential of sharks is nowhere near enough for them to stay in close proximity of a whale swimming  at 20km/h for many hours.

[dinosauria101]

Is that so? I thought the sharks would have been faster.
But if that's the case, then either the whale stalemates the sharks or they die of exhaustion before killing it.

[prehistorican]

I’m not sure they could keep up with it but I am sure if they manage to catch it, they would inflict a massive amount of damage. I made a post just like this with a dusky shark feeding frenzy killing a humpback whale calf. I’m also not sure of the actual chances of either side winning. But I think it’s related enough to be of some importance and note.

elosha:
Yes dusky sharks are actually more of a generalist and not robust mammalian killing shark species which made it quite interesting for me. Each dusky shark was estimated at 2-3m long. So an average of 2.5m and almost 94kgs. They say that 10-20 sharks attacked the whale, so an average of 15 sharks seems reasonable. It seems this calf was a newborn maybe 2 weeks old. On the Wikipedia page it states that a calf at birth is almost 1633kgs. If we go by the averages, then a feeding frenzy of 15 dusky sharks each 2.5m and 94kgs each (total weight of 1,410kgs) killed a 1600+kgs humpback newborn/calf. The attack also went on for 6.5 hours long, the length and extertion from the chase eventually killing the whale.
On fishbase it states the dusky shark:
"Feeds on bottom and pelagic bony fish, sharks, skates, rays, cephalopods, gastropods, crustaceans, sometimes mammalian carrion and inorganic objects".
Even the Wikipedia page gives very heavy emphasis on the diverse piscivorous diet of this shark, only the largest specimens eating sea turtles and carrion form marine mammals mostly. However the attacking specimens are nowhere near the 4m and 300+kg range, and seem quite average.
The absolute gargantuan size difference between the individual shark and prey item seems quite ridiculously huge.
In the scientific paper the authors stated:
"Dusky sharks have smaller bite widths (usually less than 30 cm) than these other potential shark predators as well as smaller, more numerous overlapping teeth with finer serrations (Long and Jones 1996). As a result, the bites observed were small and clean cut with almost no tissue removal and consisted pre- dominantly of rakes and scrapes, which are typical of carch- arhinid sharks (Long and Jones 1996). This is not surprising since mammalian remains are rarely found in this species, which feeds primarily on bony fish and other elasmobranchs".
here is the paper:https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alison_Kock/publication/276500821_First_observations_of_dusky_sharks_Carcharhinus_obscurus_attacking_a_humpback_whale_Megaptera_novaeangliae_calf/links/5a3b4b97a6fdcc7ffe649220/First-observations-of-dusky-sharks-Carcharhinus-obscurus-attacking-a-humpback-whale-Megaptera-novaeangliae-calf.pdf?origin=publication_detail
Hypothetically if the duskies were to be replaced with scaled down white sharks, I believe they would do a lot of damage. Much more than observed here.

[sam1]

Apr 4, 2019 17:07:42 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

Is that so? I thought the sharks would have been faster.
But if that's the case, then either the whale stalemates the sharks or they die of exhaustion before killing it.

This is not a VS scenario(that would be stupid btw, the whale has no means to hurt the sharks), it is simply a question whether the sharks could hunt the whale down in theory.

[sam1]

Apr 4, 2019 18:30:37 GMT 5 prehistorican said:

I’m not sure they could keep up with it but I am sure if they manage to catch it, they would inflict a massive amount of damage. I made a post just like this with a dusky shark feeding frenzy killing a humpback whale calf. I’m also not sure of the actual chances of either side winning. But I think it’s related enough to be of some importance and note.

elosha:
Yes dusky sharks are actually more of a generalist and not robust mammalian killing shark species which made it quite interesting for me. Each dusky shark was estimated at 2-3m long. So an average of 2.5m and almost 94kgs. They say that 10-20 sharks attacked the whale, so an average of 15 sharks seems reasonable. It seems this calf was a newborn maybe 2 weeks old. On the Wikipedia page it states that a calf at birth is almost 1633kgs. If we go by the averages, then a feeding frenzy of 15 dusky sharks each 2.5m and 94kgs each (total weight of 1,410kgs) killed a 1600+kgs humpback newborn/calf. The attack also went on for 6.5 hours long, the length and extertion from the chase eventually killing the whale.
On fishbase it states the dusky shark:
"Feeds on bottom and pelagic bony fish, sharks, skates, rays, cephalopods, gastropods, crustaceans, sometimes mammalian carrion and inorganic objects".
Even the Wikipedia page gives very heavy emphasis on the diverse piscivorous diet of this shark, only the largest specimens eating sea turtles and carrion form marine mammals mostly. However the attacking specimens are nowhere near the 4m and 300+kg range, and seem quite average.
The absolute gargantuan size difference between the individual shark and prey item seems quite ridiculously huge.
In the scientific paper the authors stated:
"Dusky sharks have smaller bite widths (usually less than 30 cm) than these other potential shark predators as well as smaller, more numerous overlapping teeth with finer serrations (Long and Jones 1996). As a result, the bites observed were small and clean cut with almost no tissue removal and consisted pre- dominantly of rakes and scrapes, which are typical of carch- arhinid sharks (Long and Jones 1996). This is not surprising since mammalian remains are rarely found in this species, which feeds primarily on bony fish and other elasmobranchs".
here is the paper:https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alison_Kock/publication/276500821_First_observations_of_dusky_sharks_Carcharhinus_obscurus_attacking_a_humpback_whale_Megaptera_novaeangliae_calf/links/5a3b4b97a6fdcc7ffe649220/First-observations-of-dusky-sharks-Carcharhinus-obscurus-attacking-a-humpback-whale-Megaptera-novaeangliae-calf.pdf?origin=publication_detail
Hypothetically if the duskies were to be replaced with scaled down white sharks, I believe they would do a lot of damage. Much more than observed here.

Sharks undoubtedly can bite and cause wounds, and loss of blood.
What's  very doubtful, again, is can they keep up with an adult blue whale. A humpback whale calf is not comparable in that regard.

[elosha11]

Well of course, the hypothetical must assume level of cooperation and team attack not observed in nature. The only way I'd see it working is if a large number of sharks could ambush the whale from below without it detecting them, and inflict a quick series of bites (particularly around the fins and tail) which somewhat wound the whale and begin to slow it down. In that regard, a few larger great whites, say 2000 kgs, would help immensely with the bite volume necessary. Honestly, I'm not sure a shark of only 1000 kgs has the bite force/size to make an impactful bite on a healthy whale, at least not in the amount of time it would take for the whale to take evasive action.

As to speed/endurance, I think the sharks could keep up with the whale for awhile, as their top speed probably meets or even exceeds the whale. But they'd have to swarm the whale and prevent it from diving or escaping, similar to orcas, although of course each individual orca is way larger than 1000 kg, even if in a smaller pod. The great whites would certainly tire more quickly than orcas or the blue whale, so only if they could keep the whale in place, and have maybe 1/3 of them attacking while the others wait their turn. Then the attackers rest, and another 30-40 attack, etc.

This would only work if our fictional, super-coordinated pod of great whites got in some critical bites and were able to surround the whale quickly. And of course given it size, the thrashing of the enormous whale could injure or kill a number of them. I'd give the whale a 70/30 chance of escaping/overcoming the sharks in this hypothetical.

[dinosauria101]

Apr 4, 2019 19:15:20 GMT 5 sam1 said:

Apr 4, 2019 17:07:42 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

Is that so? I thought the sharks would have been faster.
But if that's the case, then either the whale stalemates the sharks or they die of exhaustion before killing it.

This is not a VS scenario(that would be stupid btw, the whale has no means to hurt the sharks), it is simply a question whether the sharks could hunt the whale down in theory.

Apologies, I had this mixed up.
I do not think they'd really be able to hunt the whale, too much work and too little chance for success.

[theropod]

Apr 4, 2019 19:51:37 GMT 5 elosha11 said:

Well of course, the hypothetical must assume level of cooperation and team attack not observed in nature. The only way I'd see it working is if a large number of sharks could ambush the whale from below without it detecting them, and inflict a quick series of bites (particularly around the fins and tail) which somewhat wound the whale and begin to slow it down. In that regard, a few larger great whites, say 2000 kgs, would help immensely with the bite volume necessary. Honestly, I'm not sure a shark of only 1000 kgs has the bite force/size to make an impactful bite on a healthy whale, at least not in the amount of time it would take for the whale to take evasive action.

As to speed/endurance, I think the sharks could keep up with the whale for awhile, as their top speed probably meets or even exceeds the whale. But they'd have to swarm the whale and prevent it from diving or escaping, similar to orcas, although of course each individual orca is way larger than 1000 kg, even if in a smaller pod. The great whites would certainly tire more quickly than orcas or the blue whale, so only if they could keep the whale in place, and have maybe 1/3 of them attacking while the others wait their turn. Then the attackers rest, and another 30-40 attack, etc.

This would only work if our fictional, super-coordinated pod of great whites got in some critical bites and were able to surround the whale quickly. And of course given it size, the thrashing of the enormous whale could injure or kill a number of them. I'd give the whale a 70/30 chance of escaping/overcoming the sharks in this hypothetical.

But real sharks don’t display that level of planning and teamwork though, do they?

I think such a group of sharks would actually be quite capable of fatally wounding even an adult blue whale if it let them. I even think they would probably be better at the pure damage-causing part of the confrontation than orcas, given that there are enough of them to make up for their individually smaller size, as their dentition and gape is a lot more suitable for taking on giant prey.
However what they would lack in is firstly the raw strength to prevent the whale from fleeing, diving or surfacing, secondly the coordination necessary to efficiently disable it (which is important because each individual is so small compared to the whale, wearing it down without a plan will take very long) and prevent its escape, and thirdly the stamina to keep up with it over long periods of time. Top speed alone won’t help them, as they don’t need to outrun the whale, but endurance is tremendously important.
Seeing how large whales often take very long spans of time even for large orca pods to kill, and considering there is still no confirmed instance of orcas actually taking on something the size of an average adult blue whale, I don’t think a healthy adult has anything to fear from sharks.

[sam1]

Apr 4, 2019 19:51:37 GMT 5 elosha11 said:

Well of course, the hypothetical must assume level of cooperation and team attack not observed in nature. The only way I'd see it working is if a large number of sharks could ambush the whale from below without it detecting them, and inflict a quick series of bites (particularly around the fins and tail) which somewhat wound the whale and begin to slow it down. In that regard, a few larger great whites, say 2000 kgs, would help immensely with the bite volume necessary. Honestly, I'm not sure a shark of only 1000 kgs has the bite force/size to make an impactful bite on a healthy whale, at least not in the amount of time it would take for the whale to take evasive action.

As to speed/endurance, I think the sharks could keep up with the whale for awhile, as their top speed probably meets or even exceeds the whale. But they'd have to swarm the whale and prevent it from diving or escaping, similar to orcas, although of course each individual orca is way larger than 1000 kg, even if in a smaller pod. The great whites would certainly tire more quickly than orcas or the blue whale, so only if they could keep the whale in place, and have maybe 1/3 of them attacking while the others wait their turn. Then the attackers rest, and another 30-40 attack, etc.

This would only work if our fictional, super-coordinated pod of great whites got in some critical bites and were able to surround the whale quickly. And of course given it size, the thrashing of the enormous whale could injure or kill a number of them. I'd give the whale a 70/30 chance of escaping/overcoming the sharks in this hypothetical.

That is exactly how I envisioned the only imaginable way..a swarm of sharks surging from below and delivering a multitude of quick bites before the whale reacts.
In theory, it could be damaging enough for a fatal outcome over a prolonged period.
But it would need to happen in a few short second timeframe..the moment a whale starts to swim there's nothing the sharks could do imho.
Even if they could stay with it they could not deliver bites while in pursuit.

[dinosauria101]

Yeah, if it wanted to the whale could probably overpower the sharks, get a good swimming start, and there wouldn't be too much the sharks could do at that point.

[DonaldCengXiongAzuma]

Even the smallest baleen whale called the minke has great endurance. Imagine the endurance of a much larger blue whale.

[prehistorican]

I believe such a scenario in the real world is impossible 100%. To even get great whites that many in a concentrated area is hard enough. Try adding a dead whale maybe? Then they focus on the dead whale not the fleeing blue whale. Anyways in the impossible chance that this would happen in this scenario I believe that: The (bloodthirsty/starving) great whites will in a frenzy attack the whale's underside with maybe a couple dozen bites, but the whale will react very quickly and flee. It will be a very failed hunt, the sharks will not be able to kill the whale at all unless the whale is incapacitated the speed/endurance is its main weapon.

Hypothetically since this scenario is impossible enough why not a pissed off blue whale? Maybe it would ramming the frenzied sharks, tail slapping etc? I might give a slim chance to the sharks since they could get more hits on the whale considering both go on the offensive. But who knows?