Curious Octopus Plays Tug-of-War with Diver’s GoPro, Tries to Steal It

Earlier this month, in the waters off the coast of Mandelieu-la-Napoule, France, a freediver got into an underwater tug-of-war with a small octopus who badly wanted to run away with the diver’s GoPro. The resulting footage is sort of like a 4-minute underwater chase scene.

The “incident” took place on July 8th, and you can see it above captured from two vantage points: the stolen camera, and the diver’s camera in hot pursuit. Eventually, the duo meet and play tug-of-war as the persistent octopus refuses to give up his bounty.

If you’re been a reader of PetaPixel for a while, this probably won’t surprise you. Not only have we seen plenty of animals steal photographers’ GoPros before, another enterprising octopus went viral 5 years ago when it grabbed the camera in its enclosure and used it to photograph its captors. A year before that, an octopus tried to run away with a photographer’s entire underwater SLR rig…

This video isn’t quite as dramatic as all that, but if you need a break from all the overheating controversies or you’ve been beating yourself up for selling your Kodak stock before it shot up 2,000% in 48 hours, check out the full video up top.