A rare type of killer whale known to prey on sharks – but almost never is seen eating them – has been documented twice this past week feasting on sharks in California.

On Monday off of Long Beach, private boater Eric Martin piloted a drone over a vast pod of offshore killer whales. His camera focused on an adult female carrying a blue shark wrapped around her pectoral fin, like a waiter hoists a towel.

Trailing mom was a young calf, which seemed more interested in nursing than snacking on fresh shark meat. This extraordinary footage might have been the first documentation of predation by offshore killer whales on blue sharks off California.

Asked if he knew the type of footage he was capturing, Martin said no. “I’m still learning how to fly the damn drone over animals like that, so I was nervous the whole time,” he said.

Alisa Schulman-Janiger, a whale researcher who was with Martin, said there were 10-15 offshore killer whales in the group, but that smaller sub-groups were spread out over a large area.

Last week in Monterey Bay, offshore killer whales were documented passing around a large sevengill shark.

The first-of-its-kind footage, captured by Slater Moore of Monterey Bay Whale Watch, showed the orcas engaged in a behavior called prey sharing, intended to teach calves about food sources.

Offshore killer whales, first identified in 1988, are known to prey largely on Pacific sleeper sharks, which are found in offshore waters, often at great depths.

They’re also known to eat large fish, but sharks comprise so much of their diet that the mammals’ teeth are more rounded than sharp, because of the toughness of shark skin.

These mysterious orcas typically remain so far beyond the coast that they’re rarely encountered. They’re more common off British Columbia, Canada, but even sightings in that region are rare.

The mammals were first documented off California in 1992, in Monterey Bay.