Think you understand the ocean's food chain? This photo of a sea lion attacking a small thresher shark might throw you for a loop.
Slater Moore
While it's actually quite common for sea lions to attack small sharks, most of us aren't used to thinking of sharks as prey.
It certainly came as a shock to many people aboard a whale-watching tour off the coast of Newport Beach, California, on Wednesday. The tour boat saw at least five sea lions attacking multiple small thresher sharks, The Orange County Register reports.
"It was absolutely insane," Slater Moore, a photographer and member of the boat's crew, told The Huffington Post. "Predator becoming prey, nature's finest!"
Moore snapped photos and flew his drone over the water to film the pinnipeds' bloody feast.
"Everyone on the boat was completely shocked," he said of witnessing the attacks.
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"It's certainly a turning of the tables," said Chris Lowe, the director of the Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach. "People don't think of marine mammals eating sharks, but it's actually kind of common."
Sea lions are opportunistic feeders, according to the Marine Mammal Center, which means they go for easy meals. That includes squid, herring and, yes, small sharks.
In this case, Lowe explained, these young thresher sharks were easy targets for the sea lions because they're fairly inexperienced with predators.
"After thresher sharks are born, they get no training [from their moms]," Lowe explained. "They don't really know how to avoid predators yet."
That all changes when the sharks reach maturity, however.
Simon Oliver, a thresher shark expert, once told National Geographic that thresher shark attacks are "fast, aggressive and violent."
Those words could also be used to describe the below photos of the sea lion attacks.
Slater Moore Photography
Slater Moore Photography
Slater Moore Photography
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