An orca whale can hold its breath for up to 15 minutes

Some sharks suffocate within about 15 minutes while the whale holds them still, because these sharks need to move to breathe. In one incident filmed near the Farallon Islandsin October 1997, a female killed a 3–4-metre (9.8–13 ft) long great white shark, apparently after swimming with it upside-down in her mouth and inducing tonic immobility in it. She and another pod member ate the shark’s liver and allowed the rest of the carcass to sink.

In July 1992, two killer whales attacked, killed and fed on an 8-metre (26 ft) long whale shark, Rhincodon typus, in the waters off Bahia de los Angeles in Baja California.