The Brief

Killer whales are known for their intelligence and power, even an inclination to sink yachts. Now, research is showing how they take down prey that few other animals can.

Orcas in Mexico's Gulf of California are hunting whale sharks using a highly specialized set of strategies to attack them. Generally, whale sharks have few predators to worry about, being the largest fish species on the planet. The gentle giants, which eat tiny plankton, can grow as long as a school bus. Still, killer whales have developed a way to take them down, which researchers documented in video footage.

"They are super smart," says Erick Higuera, one of the authors of the study. "They organize the hunt, the ambush. They're like snipers. They're specialists in their hunting tactics."

A male in the killer whale pod known as Moctezuma was spotted in multiple attacks, along with other family members working together.

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James Moskito

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The findings add to a growing body of evidence showing that killer whales take the title for the ocean's top predator, using cunning and coordination in their close-knit family groups to hunt everything from blue whales to great white sharks.

"They're capable of predating on the ocean's largest creatures so I think there's no doubt about their apex predator status at this point," says Salvador Jorgensen, marine ecologist at California State University Monterey Bay, who was not involved in the research.

A coordinated attack

As a marine biologist and cinematographer, Higuera has followed one pod of killer whales for years off the coast of Mexico's Baja California Sur. He's observed them eating other species of sharks and rays. One day, he received a tourist video documenting something he'd never seen.

In it, a male killer whale is swimming around the body of a bleeding whale shark. Later, three more videos showed similar scenes, where a group of killer whales worked together to attack other whale sharks. All the whale sharks were juveniles, though still 15 to 20 feet long.

"My surprise and my amazement is that they are definitely specialist hunters," Higuera says. "When we saw the video, we got excited."

Here's how the killer whales do it, which Higuera and his colleagues published in the journal Frontiers. First, the killer whales work together to ram the whale shark, stunning it and preventing it from diving deep, one of the whale shark's only defenses.

"It's a huge animal that has very tiny teeth," says Francesca Pancaldi, a marine biologist at Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias Marinas and a co-author on the study. "It's relatively slow compared to other sharks and it cannot defend itself, other than dive down. The whale shark is a great diver."

At the same time, the killer whales flip the whale shark onto its back. When sharks are upside down, they can go into a trance-like state known as "tonic immobility." Then, the killer whales begin biting the soft underbelly of the whale shark, causing it to bleed profusely.

The orcas coordinate their attack to ram the whale shark and keep it from diving, the whale shark's primary defense mechanism.

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That could also give the killer whales access to eating one of the most nutritious parts of a shark – its liver, something that killer whales have been documented eating in other types of sharks.

"Sharks in general, they don't have a lot of fat," Pancaldi says. "The only fatty part in the body of a shark is the liver."

Killer whales are known for these highly coordinated attacks, where techniques are taught in multi-generational families, led by the matriarch.

"They have a tradition," Higuera says. "They have a culture that's unique to this family. There is definitely a cultural learning that has gone through generations."

Even great white sharks should worry

Orcas around the world specialize in different types of prey, each with their own unique hunting strategies. Some killer whales only eat fish, while others prey on marine mammals.

Orca families are highly specialized in their favorite prey, honing their techniques over generations.

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Some orcas have been documented hunting seals by using waves to break the ice the seals are resting on, washing them into their waiting jaws. Off Australia, they've been seen using coordinated attacks to hunt the largest animal on the planet, a blue whale.

Off California's coast, even great white sharks avoid orcas. One study found that white sharks fled when killer whales appeared, leaving their seasonal feeding grounds for as long as a year. Killer whales have been documented hunting white sharks off South Africa, going after their livers as well.

"When orcas come around, it creates this landscape of fear that white sharks, for example, are able to detect and respond to," Jorgensen says. "We've been seeing killer whales going after sharks and particularly larger sharks, which is the more surprising part of this, around the world."

As the ocean's top predators, killer whale families have developed the skills to take their pick. "They eat all the best stuff in the ocean," Jorgensen.

Cooler weather has returned to Southern California for the weekend. Coastal communities will experience mostly to partly cloudy skies on Friday.

Along the L.A. and Orange County coast daytime highs will drop to as low as 65 degrees with the warmest areas topping out at 71 degrees.

The eastern San Fernando Valley will have highs from 69 to 74 degrees, meanwhile the western side will see highs from 71 to 76 degrees.

Over in the Inland Empire, temperatures will range from 70 to 75 degrees. In Coachella Valley, communities there will see temperatures from 75 to 80 degrees.

No burn alert in effect

The South Coast Air Quality Management District has issued a no burn alert for most of SoCal until 11:59 p.m. because of high air pollution. That means you should avoid any burning of wood, including fireplaces or manufactured logs made from wax or paper.

The alert applies to O.C. and L.A. County's non-desert areas and Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Excluded from the ban area are residents without natural gas, as well as communities in the High Desert and mountains.

On a small, formerly vacant, county-owned lot on Lincoln Avenue in Altadena, fire survivors can get a glimpse into one of the fastest and most affordable ways to rebuild — prefabricated and modular housing.

The Altadena Prefab Showcase has staged six models of factory-built homes and ADUs on the lot this month. Time is running out to visit — the showcase closes up shop after Sunday.

The factory-built “village” is an “educational tool to help Altadenans understand what might be a really stable, predictable, economical pathway home,” said Ryan Conroy, director of architecture at UCLA’s cityLAB, a housing and urban design research center.

The homes range between about $50,000 to more than $200,000. Prefabricated housing is built at a factory offsite, and designs already are approved at the local and state levels, so the process is often cheaper and faster.

“So you can get a home in months, not years, essentially,” Conroy said. “Things can move concurrently, where your home is being built in the factory while you're working on permits with the county, while you're getting your site ready for foundations.”

The homes also are built up to fire codes, and survivors can use them as a permanent dwelling, a temporary home while they rebuild their main house, or as an ADU.

The showcase is a partnership between the UCLA’s cityLAB, L.A. County, prefab housing manufacturers (largely local) and a variety of community-based organizations. Several of the companies, such as AMEG and Liv-Connected, helped rebuild or provide temporary housing after other disasters and recent fires such as in Lahaina, Maui.

A 3D-printed ADU by Gardena-based modular homebuilder Azure.

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A prefab housing showcase has been installed on Lincoln Avenue in Altadena over the past month.

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Option to stay on property

Tameka Alexander and her daughter still are staying in a hotel — their home was spared by the Eaton Fire, but severe smoke damage has made it unsafe to move back in. She says they’re currently waiting for their home’s insulation to be replaced. That’s why she was at the showcase on a recent Saturday — to see if a prefabricated home may help them return to their property sooner, while their house gets remediated.

“It's been nine months, and I just don't know how much longer it'll be, but I would prefer to actually be in something that would allow me to be on the property,” she said.

Various prefab housing designs at the Altadena Prefab Showcase.

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Casty Fortich also was at the showcase one recent Saturday with his wife. They and their two teenaged daughters, plus their dog and cat, have been living in a small apartment in Monrovia since losing their Altadena home of more than 20 years in the Eaton Fire. The rent was affordable for them for up to three years — the time Fortich estimated it could take to rebuild.

But the apartment is cramped — and with their rebuild still years in the making (Fortich hopes it can be complete by summer 2027), the family is considering purchasing a prefab unit to live in while they rebuild, and then they can rent it out as an ADU. Even with insurance, they estimate they have about a $300,000 to $500,000 gap to rebuild.

“A lot of us are unable to pay for a replacement, and so I think this is an option for many to stay on their property,” he said.

Annnnnnd they're off — blockbusters chasing award contenders everywhere you look. Disney animation, a new Knives Out mystery, an afterlife romance, a bazonkers Brazilian thriller, and a tale of Shakespeare and the healing power of art. Good thing you caught up with Wicked: For Good last week, right?

Here's what's new in theaters for the holiday weekend. (And here's what came out last week, and the week before.)

Zootopia 2 

In theaters now 

Back in 2016, Zootopia grossed over a billion dollars worldwide — so it's no surprise we now have Zootopia 2. In the first movie, our heroes, Judy Hopps, a bunny voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin, and Nick Wilde, a fox voiced by Jason Bateman, became partners in the Zootopia Police Department, having worked together to catch a corrupt assistant mayor and put her away. Now, they're settling into their new jobs, trying to get used to the fact that she's a strict rule-follower, and he's a little more laid-back.

And there's a new problem: a snake has appeared in a reptile-free zone, and he brings to light a mystery from Zootopia's complicated past. New voices like Ke Huy Quan and Andy Samberg add something new to what has already been a winning formula for Disney. Judy and Nick get a little help from a friendly beaver with the voice of Fortune Feimster, and they naturally cross paths with lots of their old pals from the first movie. — Linda Holmes 

Eternity 

In theaters now 

Larry (Miles Teller) chokes on a pretzel, and the next thing he knows, he's on a train with just one destination: a version of purgatory known as the Junction. After that unfortunate event, however, he has two strokes of luck. The first, his assigned Afterlife Coordinator is Anna (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), an efficient, compassionate guide to help him figure out where he wants to spend eternity. The second? His wife of 60+ years, Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) joins him at the Junction shortly thereafter.

But there's a hitch in this story co-written by Pat Cunnane with director David Freyne: Joan's first husband, Luke (Callum Turner), who died in the Korean War, has been waiting there at the Junction for Joan ever since, determined to pick up where they left off in the hereafter. So Joan has a big choice to make: stick with Larry, or gamble on a forever with her first love. — Sarah Handel 

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

In limited theaters; on Netflix Dec. 12 

The following trailer contains an instance of vulgar language. 

Rian Johnson's deliriously topical Benoit Blanc threequel is as gothic as its upstate New York church setting. A young pugilist-turned-priest named Jud (Josh O'Connor) is sent there to assist the hate-filled but popular-with-his-flock Monsignor Jefferson (Josh Brolin). Variously sketchy parishioners Glenn Close, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner, Andrew Scott, and Thomas Haden Church remain loyal no matter how vile, crude, or destructive their Monsignor becomes. So Jud, being the only person in close proximity not in thrall to him, is immediately the lead suspect when Jefferson drops dead during a service. The filmmaker's jests this time are often jabs at religious hypocrisy and how blind faith binds followers to leaders who are entirely focused on themselves and the power they wield.

If there were any doubt about who exactly is being poked here, it's laid bare when Daryl McCormack, playing a craven conservative politician who's seeking favor with Jefferson, runs down a quick list of far-right talking points that have failed to land for him. There are twists enough to tangle a spider in its own web, jokes and sight gags aplenty, and Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc is as sharply etched as ever, in what is, to my mind, the most rewarding episode in the series. — Bob Mondello

Hamnet

In limited theaters

A woman in scarlet curled up among forest tree roots awaits her hawk's return from hunting in the film's opening image. Agnes (Jessie Buckley) is thought by townsfolk to be the daughter of a witch, and she certainly bewitches young Will (Paul Mescal), the Latin tutor teaching her brothers. The year is 1580, the place, a town near Stratford-upon-Avon, and the two young lovers will soon have three lovely children: firstborn Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Based on Maggie O'Farrell's acclaimed 2020 novel based on the lives of William Shakespeare and his wife, better known as Anne Hathaway, Chloe Zhao's breath-catchingly beautiful film luxuriates in these joy-filled early scenes, painting the family and the natural world around them in sumptuous, earthy tones before bringing that world crashing down around them.

Will, who by this time is writing plays for a theater troupe, is in London when tragedy strikes at home. Buckley's Agnes faces the death of their 11-year-old son alone, and can't forgive Will for not being there. Her grief all-encompassing, she barely registers that he also grieves as he rushes back to London and the theater. The film, though, is more than a portrait of a family tragedy. In its final quarter-hour Zhao shows us that this story has always really been about the transcendent, healing power of art. That sounds almost simpleminded, and it takes some directorial sleight-of-hand and historical fudging to make it work. But work it surely does, in a knockout climax that reduced me, and much of the audience at various film festivals, to sobs. Agnes reaches for the son who is no more, Will brings forth a play that will never die, and if there's been a more staggering cinematic catharsis in recent years, I've not experienced it. — Bob Mondello 

The Secret Agent 

In limited theaters

Marcelo (Wagner Moura) is a dissident on the run in director Kleber Mendonça Filho's bizarro Brazilian thriller, which takes place during Carnival, and mixes (among many, many elements) hitmen, corrupt cops, a '70s movie palace showing Jaws to a shark-obsessed public, a supernatural "hairy leg" that hops around gay cruising spots, officials intent on undermining science and marginalizing women, and an underground resistance movement that operates safe houses and a fake document mill. The central storyline involves Marcelo trying to escape the long reach of a casually brutal regime that's branded him a troublemaker. He needs papers for himself and his young son, and is also trying to find information about his late mother, for reasons that will be revealed in a modern-day framing sequence (in which Moura appears in a second role).

If that all sounds complicated, rest assured it's just the start of a rousing, suspenseful, occasionally hilarious, and ultimately unnerving 160-minute tale of battling political oppression. Mendonça began his career as a journalist and film critic, and his stylistic choices suggest a fondness for the work of De Palma, Scorsese, Fellini, Antonioni, Hitchcock and Tarantino, among others. What he's concocted, though, is strikingly original and speaks to the current political moment. — Bob Mondello
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