On a quiet morning in mid-2021, beach-goers near the southern tip of South Africa stumbled upon a sight that looked almost staged: a 25-metre blue whale, the largest animal ever to have lived, lying on the sand cleaved almost perfectly in two.
Within hours, photographs and drone footage flooded social media, spawning headlines that a great white shark had “bitten the whale in half”, a phrase that quickly became a viral meme.
Yet the science behind the spectacle is more nuanced and, in many respects, more unsettling than the click-bait version.
The Carcass that Launched a Thousand Shares
Initial reports were based on images alone. The whale’s peduncle (the muscular section just ahead of the tail flukes) had been severed so cleanly that many viewers assumed propeller trauma or even foul play. South African marine authorities cordoned off the beach while a joint team from the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) and local universities began necropsy work the same afternoon.
Key observations from that first day:
- No major external bleeding around the wound edges, indicating the whale was already dead when the injury occurred.
- Ragged, overlapping tooth impressions along the cut margin, each crescent 5–7 cm wide—measurements consistent with adult great white shark dentition.
- Blunt trauma to the right flank suggesting the whale may have been struck by a ship days earlier.
Autopsy Findings: Scavenging, Not Predation
Over the following week, pathologists and shark biologists released a preliminary report that reframed the story:
- Cause of death: severe internal haemorrhage from a ship strike, evidenced by fractured ribs and a ruptured hepatic artery.
- Post-mortem dismemberment: at least two large sharks (identified via bite-radius analysis as female great whites in the 4.5–5 m range) fed on the floating carcass, focusing on the already-traumatised mid-section. The “bitten in half” appearance resulted when wave action and tidal currents pulled apart the largely consumed section.
- Time line: bite marks overlay one another in distinct feeding bouts separated by roughly 12–18 hours, indicating the sharks returned repeatedly until the carcass beached.
In short, the whale was dead before the sharks arrived; they did not “attack” it in the cinematic sense, but rather exploited a 150-tonne energy bonanza drifting at the surface.
Why the Story Refuses to Die
A year later, in August 2022, a kayak-bumping incident off Maui, Hawai‘i, revived interest. A father-and-son pair filmed a 4 m great white investigating their canoe; the video went viral and was quickly linked (by tabloids rather than scientists) to the South African event under headlines such as “Same Monster Shark Strikes Again?” Marine biologists noted that the Maui animal’s dorsal fin markings did not match any individual catalogued in South African waters, but the timing was enough to resurrect the older story.
The Larger Context: Do Great Whites Hunt Blue Whales?
Peer-reviewed data say almost never. Adult blue whales can out-swim and even out-turn a great white in sustained pursuit; calves are more vulnerable, yet documented predation attempts are vanishingly rare. A 2022 review in Discover Magazine found zero verified cases of great whites killing healthy blue whales. Instead:
- Orcas are the only confirmed natural predator of blue whales, with three witnessed kills off Western Australia in 2021.
- Scavenging on floating carcasses is common and ecologically important; great whites can consume up to 30 kg of blubber per minute, accelerating nutrient recycling in surface waters.
Lessons from a Viral Moment
The “blue whale bitten in half” episode underscores how quickly partial truths can eclipse scientific reality in the digital age. The real story is not of a super-shark felling a leviathan, but of:
- Ship strikes remaining a leading—if less sensational—cause of death for endangered blue whales.
- Scavengers performing an essential clean-up role.
- Citizen science and social media accelerating data collection while simultaneously distorting interpretation.
As blue whale populations slowly recover from 20th-century whaling, encounters like the 2021 stranding will likely increase. The challenge for scientists and communicators alike is to ensure that the next viral whale headline is anchored in evidence, not just shock value.