Great white sharks are NOT kings of the ocean as study finds they FLEE from ...

When faced with a killer whale, it seems even Jaws might take pause for thought — as new research reveals great white sharks beat a hasty retreat if orcas are around.

What happens when top-level predators meet on land is well documented, but little is known about similar interactions in our oceans.

To find out, researchers searched for encounters between great white sharks and orcas — also known as killer whales — in electronic tagging and observational data. 

In every case where the two predators came into contact, the sharks turned tail and fled from the killer whales, researchers found. 

Elephant seals may be the real winner of the battle of the predators as the exodus of sharks means more of their young pups survive.  

Scroll down for video  

When faced with a killer whale, it seems even Jaws might take pause for thought — as new research reveals great white sharks beat a hasty retreat if orcas come around (file photo)

When faced with a killer whale, it seems even Jaws might take pause for thought — as new research reveals great white sharks beat a hasty retreat if orcas come around (file photo)

In every case where the two predators came into contact, the sharks turned tail and fled from the killer whales, the researchers found (file photo)

In every case where the two predators came into contact, the sharks turned tail and fled from the killer whales, the researchers found (file photo)

Predator on predator encounters — dubbed 'lateral interactions' — are well known on land, but how they play out in the ocean is poorly understood. 

To investigate, a research team led by Monterey Bay Aquarium's Salvador Jorgensen, set about to see what happens in the rare cases when sharks and orcas end up occupying the same waters.

They focused their study on the seas around Southeast Farallon Island, which lies off of the coast of San Francisco.

The team cross-referenced data from electronic shark tags with field observations of orca sightings.

The shark data included 165 of the predators that had been tagged between 2006 and 2013.

The monitoring data from the Farallon Islands went back further — spanning 27 years — and included surveys of local orca, seal and shark numbers. 

'The research in this paper combines two really robust data sources,' commented paper co-author Jim Tietz, who is a biologist from Point Blue Conservation Science.

'By supplementing the Aquarium's new shark tagging data with Point Blue's long-term monitoring of wildlife at the Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge, we were able to conclusively show how white sharks clear out of the area when the orcas show up.'

In total, the researchers report four different encounters between the two top-tier predators around  the Southeast Farallon Island during the study period.

'When confronted by orcas, white sharks will immediately vacate their preferred hunting ground and will not return for up to a year,' said Dr Jorgensen.

This happens, he added, 'even though the orcas are only passing through,'

It is not presently clear whether the killer whales are actively targeting white sharks, or if they simply present unwanted competition for the calorie-rich elephant seals.

Data from the electronic tags revealed that the sharks fled the area within just minutes of the orcas turning up. 

'These are huge white sharks. Some are over 18 feet long (5.5 metres), and they usually rule the roost here,' Anderson said.

'We've been observing some of these sharks for the past 15 to 20 years — and a few of them even longer than that.'

Having been displaced by the arrival of

read more from dailymail.....

PREV Is this the next iPhone SE? Leaked images claim to show Apple's next budget ... trends now
NEXT AI envisions the 'perfect' homes in 20 UK cities - from a pastel pink property ... trends now