They might be one of the ocean's most fearsome predators - but did you know there is one creature that great white sharks are terrified of?
New studies have shown that the hunters become the hunted when killer whales, known as orcas, are on the scene.
Scientists discovered that when confronted by orcas , great white sharks will immediately leave the area and not return for up to a year.
The research took place at Southeast Farallon Island, a marine sanctuary off the coast of San Fransisco in the U.S.
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It turns out the sharks - some more than five metres long compared to the orcas' eight metres - sped away within minutes of spotting them.
Monterey Bay Aquarium scientist Scot Anderson said: "After orcas show up, we don’t see a single shark — and there are no more kills."
The researchers also examined the movements of 165 great white sharks tagged with a GPS between 2006 and 2013, and 27 years of population data of orcas.
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Scientists also found that the population of elephant seals in some parts of the area grew as the great whites sped away from the orcas.
Salvador Jorgensen, a senior research scientist at Monterey Bay Aquarium, said: "We don’t typically think about how fear and risk aversion might play a role in shaping where large predators hunt and how that influences ocean ecosystems.
“It turns out these risk effects are very strong even for large predators like white sharks — strong enough to redirect their hunting activity to less preferred but safer areas.”
