The teamwork is undeniable: Four orcas race through the Southern Ocean toward a seal stranded on sea ice. At the last minute, they dive simultaneously, creating a wave that swamps the floe, washing the crabeater seal—a potential meal—into the drink.

The seal gets away. But maybe not for the reason you think.

Stunning video footage shot in early January by the Lindblad team on a National Geographic Lindblad Expedition in Grandidier Channel, on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, captures the extent to which the White Continent's killer whales—technically dolphins—work as a unit when hunting food.

The whales repeatedly speed together, building a swell large enough to rock the tiny platform of ice and dunk the seal. When the seal