Giant Octopus Grabs Camera From Diver and Films Itself
A diver had a “once in a lifetime” encounter with a giant Pacific octopus after the sea creature showed interest in him and his camera — grabbing it from him and then giving him a hug.
John Roney and Chris Mullen are underwater photographers and videographers hailing from Vancouver Island, Canada. On August 5, the pair went diving in Nanoose Bay when they spotted a “particularly large” octopus.
“It sort of approached us directly, hopped, and explored my camera, and then I just let go of my camera and I let it have it for a couple of minutes,” Roney tells CBC.
Roney recalls handing the camera to the octopus after it gave the device a “big hug.” The creature then strolled about with it, inadvertently filming its sucker-lined arms and the pale expanse of its underbelly.
The octopus dropped the camera and then turned to Mullen, reached out its arms, and embraced him. The encounter has been described by experts as “remarkable.”
“Octopuses, even though they are invertebrates, have very, very well-developed brains and they are highly intelligent creatures,” Anna Hall, a marine mammal zoologist at Seaview Marine Sciences, tells Chek News. “I think this giant Pacific octopus would have taken an interest in the divers and perhaps even their equipment, and wanted to find out more.”
Roney praised the octopus’s camera work, telling CBC that it is “honestly the best footage of inside an octopus’ web I’ve seen an octopus take… better than mine.”
Octopuses are truly amazing creatures. During the filming of BBC wildlife documentary, Spy in the Ocean, a camera disguised as an animatronic octopus also got a tentacled cuddle from a real octopus.
“You really see that people are fascinated by these animals because they’re so intelligent and they’re so curious, and they’re also so otherworldly, right. They’re so different from anything that you’d see on land,” adds Roney. “And it makes me happy to see people seeing our local marine life here.”
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
