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Despite being dubbed the "killer whale," the orca has enjoyed a pretty family-friendly image, whether it's putting on shows with humans at Sea World or starring in 'Free Willy.' But just like how its classification as a whale is misleading (it's actually the largest subspecies of the dolphin family), so too is its friendly reputation.

Orcas live in all the world's oceans, from the Arctic Ocean and Antarctica to warmer tropical seas, and in every single one they are menaces, apex predators at the top of the food chain, ruling with an iron fin! Massive, agile, and extremely intelligent, they are the most powerful and deadly animals in the water. And as if that weren't enough, there have been increasing reports in recent years of their species serial killing, vengefully sinking boats, torturing other animals for sport, and more.

The most recent incident was more serious than the average boat attack. A 50 ft (15 m) yacht was rammed off course in the Strait of Gibraltar by orcas and eventually sank due to the damage. The two passengers aboard the boat, named the Alboran Cognac, began to feel heavy blows to the hull and rudder around 9 AM local time on Saturday. The yacht began taking on water and they radioed for assistance. Thankfully, an oil tanker in the area took them aboard and brought them to Gibraltar. In the meantime, the yacht slowly sank—another victory for the killer whales. Orca rammings have become common in this area, and are attributed to a subpopulation of around 15 whales collectively named Gladis.

Have we got your attention? Then click through to learn more about the evil genius of orcas.

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Orcas are known to snatch baby sea lions, sperm whales, and seals. As the fastest swimming mammals with sophisticated social coordination and extremely powerful bodies, they most certainly can attack adult animals, as you'll see in this gallery.

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They are known to attack young humpback whales by separating the baby from the mother and then delivering continuous blows on the young whale until it dies.

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BBC Earth's Steve Backshall caught a pod of orcas swimming up onto shore to snatch a baby seal from the sand—a move that is actually very dangerous and requires a lot of effort for them because at 5,000-6,000 lbs they risk being beached. But for all that effort surely they're getting precious food, right? Wrong.

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The orcas started apparently playing with the baby seal, tossing it out of the water and passing it around. After a long while, and after the baby seal eventually died, they left the carcass behind.

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Backshall found many pup carcasses washed up on the shore, seemingly unharmed except for orca teeth prints in their bodies. These babies were killed for what seems to be sport.

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Backshall's team also found in British Columbia a pod of orcas that had encountered a fully grown male Steller's sea lion. They cornered the sea lion and began beating it down for a long time, but then came another sinister surprise.

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The orcas brought in their calves, who then also began beating down on the sea lion. They were passing down this lesson, and perhaps it may have made more sense if they all feasted on the sea lion afterwards, but instead of finishing it off they all suddenly abandoned the unmoving body. Backshall hypothesized that their surplus killing—killing not designed for food—is a matter of compartmentalizing their lives. Socializing, traveling, and educating are not for food-related hunting.

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Orcas are known to use a strike of their tails to stun fish, or to create a powerful wave that launches bigger creatures well into the air.

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With their tails they can incapacitate sharks or flip them over to induce something called tonic immobility, putting the shark into a state of paralysis, according to Live Science.

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Orcas are reportedly known to work together in coordinated attacks to create even bigger waves that can knock prey off from their safe perches on floating ice and into the water.

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In Mexico's Sea of Cortez, a stingray minding its own business was approached by an orca that swatted it with its tail in what National Geographic called “play.” Although orcas do eat stingrays, the orcas appeared to be merely showing off as they slapped and circled it for over an hour before letting it sink to the floor uneaten.

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Nothing says confidence like going after the biggest creature on Earth: blue whales. Orcas were recorded killing and eating blue whales in three separate attacks off the coast of Australia since 2019, according to a paper published in Marine Mammal Science.

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The attack in March 2019 was reportedly coordinated by at least 12 orcas, led by eight adult females and one male, with younger ones watching. The report said that after an hour of attacking, three females rammed the blue whale on its side, pushing it underwater, while two others attacked its head, and one other swam inside the whale's mouth and started eating its tongue.

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Sure, the tongue is reportedly nutritious and delicious, but the orcas that ate the tongues of the blue whales did it while the whales were still alive!

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Not even their own Delphinidae family is safe. Orcas will eat other species of dolphin, typically ramming them to stun them after a high-speed chase before going in for the kill.

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In 2017, a pair of killer whales embarked on a killing spree, slaughtering at least eight great white sharks, but in the strangest way. In all but one case, the sharks' bodies were left intact to rot, but they had a clean tear in their shoulders and their liver was gone.

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In 2023, the same pair of killer whales embarked on another killing spree, slicing out the livers of 19 broadnose sevengill sharks in a single day with near-surgical precision, and leaving their carcasses to wash ashore off the coast of South Africa. It later came out that these orcas have been extracting livers from sevengills and great white sharks since at least 2015.

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Scientists concluded that the orcas must have learned that consuming shark livers provides high energy and nutrients—because of their large quantities of fats and vitamins—and remembered exactly where to attack to get the liver without having to tear through the shark and damage their teeth.

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The duo were eerily coordinated in their kills, with one distracting the shark before the other went in for the kill. It's a strategy that requires high levels of intelligence and social cooperation. And they seemed to pass the skill on, as they were recorded performing the shark-liver technique in the presence of four other orcas, National Geographic reported.

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Researchers found that orcas are nearly silent before making a kill, neither vocalizing nor using their echolocation, because they are aware that seals, porpoises, and their other prey have excellent hearing, reports Science Daily. They also hunt under cover of night, and eavesdrop on prey to find their food.

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In a string of aggressive incidents beginning in 2020, orcas started attacking boats off the southwest coast of Europe, according to a study published in June 2022 in the journal Marine Mammal Science. These attacks have become increasingly more frequent with time.

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In May 2023, orcas sunk three boats off the Iberian coast. In each case, the orcas slammed up against the boats and specifically went after the boat's rudder.

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A theory put forward by Alfredo López Fernandez, a biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal, suggested that the aggressive behavior began with a female orca who was likely struck by a boat and traumatized, leading her to start ramming sailing vessels. People aboard the attacked boats also said they saw mother orcas teaching the little ones how to charge into the rudder.

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Scientists guess that the vengeful orca likely inadvertently taught her gang how to ram boats, as orcas are social creatures that can easily learn and reproduce behaviors performed by others.

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Footage from 2016 showed orcas tossing turtles into the air before eating them, playing with their food. In 2018, a small pod of orcas near the Galápagos Islands was caught on camera as they pushed, spun, and dragged sea turtles around—but without eating them.

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Orcas near Antarctica developed a complicated technique for hunting the penguins that live there, which involves catching them in shallow water. Once they catch them in their mouths, they “squeeze the body out like toothpaste,” as National Geographic explained, “and leave the wrapper” behind.

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Moose occupy a very different habitat to orcas and aren't even known prey for the killer whales, yet in the summer when they feed on aquatic vegetation, swimming between various islands along the coast of Canada and Alaska, there have been a few cases recorded of orcas attacking them.

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Orcas might be the star of family-friendly shows, but they're especially talented at inflicting fear in other species—even great white sharks and blue whales—and carrying out immense violence. They have meticulously maintained their reputation as the most feared predators in the ocean.

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Before we start to judge orcas, it's important to remember our own species is also notorious for its members who kill for sport, vengefully sink ships, kill our own kind, exploit other animals, and sit all too comfortably at the top of the food chain.

See also: The world's smartest animals