Tag: octopus

Watch: Diver witnesses ’rare and exciting’ seal attack on octopus

A diver in Canada captured rare video of a seal attacking an octopus, an encounter that got her heart beating quickly.

A diver in Canada captured rare video of a seal attacking an octopus, an encounter that got her heart beating quickly.

The battle occurred near Vancouver Island’s Nanoose Bay in British Columbia. Maxime Veilleux described what she saw to the CBC.

“The seal just zipped by us,” Veilleux told CBC. “We got a little bit closer and it didn’t seem bothered by us at all. We realized it was actually a giant Pacific octopus [and we arrived] right in time to see it all unfold.”

When the seal surfaced to catch a breath, the seal used the opportunity to try to flee, shooting out ink in an attempt to hide its escape. It didn’t work as the seal found the octopus and continued its attack.

“It was pretty rare and very exciting to watch,” Veilleux said. “Our hearts were beating pretty quickly.”

The CBC host reported that the octopus lost a leg in the encounter, but that there was a good chance it survived as it possibly regenerated another leg.

Kansas City Zoo & Aquarium gets octopus involved in Chiefs game day ritual

The Kansas City Zoo & Aquarium got a giant Pacific octopus named Chuck involved in their #Chiefs game day rituals.

The Kansas City Chiefs’ matchup against the Buffalo Bills in the Divisional round of the AFC playoffs is set to be one of the most competitive games of the NFL postseason, and some fans are coping with their anticipation ahead of kickoff in unprecedented ways.

On Sunday morning, the Kansas City Zoo & Aquarium posted a video of an octopus, Chuck, doing his part to get in the game day spirit by playing with a Chiefs commemorative football.

Set to dramatic music, the clip of Chuck manipulating the oblong spheroid was a unique way for fans and, as it turns out, aquatic wildlife to get in their zone ahead of Kansas City’s win-or-go-home tilt against the Bills.

As a giant Pacific octopus, Chuck’s natural allegiance could be with one of the NFL teams on the West Coast, but it is impossible to tell given that he is non-verbal.

Chiefs fans have innumerable traditions, superstitions, and pre-game rituals that they believe might help the Chiefs win, but this humble cephalopod’s demonstration is sure to be the most bizarre.

Super Bowl fans went wild for an ‘Octopus’ bet that cashed. Here’s what that means.

Jalen Hurts made Super Bowl history on this play (and made bettors a lot of money).

If you were looking over social media during Super Bowl 57 and suddenly saw “Octopus” trending, there’s a fair chance you were very confused.

No, fans of the Detroit Red Wings did not take over State Farm Stadium. Something even more rare happened, in fact.

Jalen Hurts scored a touchdown for the Philadelphia Eagles in the fourth quarter and then immediately scored again on a two-point conversion on the following play. That very specific combination is called an octopus: when a player scores a touchdown and then the same player immediately scores a two-point conversion.

Six points for the touchdown plus two more on the conversion for an eight-point play.

And it was (perhaps not so surprisingly) a longshot prop bet that saw tons of love from the betting public at +1400.

Let this be a lesson to bettors and oddsmakers: weird stuff happens in the Super Bowl all the time. It’s more fun to bet on it than against it.

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Deadly octopus is served to a diner at a hot pot restaurant

When a basket of raw octopuses was brought to the table of a hot pot restaurant, a diner turned to social media for help.

When a basket of raw octopuses on a bed of ice was brought to the table of a hot pot restaurant in China, a diner was fortunate to have waited before digging in.

What gave the diner pause was a spotted octopus that seemed out of place. And, boy, was it out of place. What he was served was a deadly blue-ringed octopus, one of the world’s most venomous marine animals.

The diner took a photo of the octopuses that included the suspicious specimen and posted it on Weibo (the Chinese equivalent to Twitter), addressing it to the official account of Natural History science magazine, according to Archyde.com and Kuai Technology via Gamingdeputy.com.

“Natural Science and Technology, I saw it in a hot pot restaurant,” the diner wrote. “Is this a blue-ringed octopus? Can it be cooked?” The diner ended the post by writing, “Waiting online, a little urgent.”

According to the South China Morning Post, a few minutes later, a response came from science education blogger Bo Wu Za Zhi, who wrote, “It is a leopard-striped octopus or blue-ringed octopus. Its toxicity is very strong and won’t be neutralized when heated.

“We’ve seen cases where blue-ringed octopuses are, on rare occasions, accidentally mixed in with ordinary octopuses sold at markets, although the possibility of this happening is very low.”

Several alarmed Weibo users expressed concern for the diner, many telling the diner not to eat the octopus with the faint blue circles.

One Weibo user finally asked, “Are you okay? You haven’t eaten it, right? Be quick to tell the restaurant owner this octopus is poisonous and cannot be eaten.”

Fortunately, the diner replied, “I haven’t eaten it. It has been taken away from the table.”

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Hot pot is popular in China. Raw ingredients such as meat and vegetables are brought to the table and diners cook them in a pot of boiling broth at the center of the table.

Obviously, one doesn’t expect any of the ingredients to be deadly.

“A thriller with good ending,” one commenter wrote on South China Morning Post.

Generic photo of a live blue-ringed octopus courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

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Angler reels in (and wrestles with) potential record octopus

A Hawaii angler appears to have shattered a state record set 22 years ago by his brother with the catch of a nearly 26 pound octopus.

A Hawaii angler appears to have shattered a state record, set 22 years ago by his brother, with the catch of a nearly 26-pound octopus.

Michael Matsunaga, 69, of Wahiawa, reeled the giant mollusk from a depth of 400 feet on Aug. 30. Once the slithery creature was aboard the boat, however, Matsunaga struggled to keep it there.

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“I finally got him in the cooler, and then I had to sit on the cooler because he was kind of lifting me up,” Matsunaga told Hawaii News Now.

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The octopus, caught off Turtle Bay on Oahu’s North Shore, weighed 25.95 pounds on a certified scale at Hanapaa Fishing.

The existing record, set by Stewart Matsunaga, stands at 19.01 pounds. Stewart reeled that octopus from a depth of 250 feet off Kaena Point, Oahu, in 2000.

Michael Matsunaga, now with bragging rights, presumably has submitted a record application with the state.

Asked what he would do with his catch, he told Hawaii News Now that he planned to eat the octopus after boiling it in beer “one leg at a time.”

–Image courtesy of Hanapaa Fishing

Anglers encounter ‘weird-looking’ octopus that is indeed bizarre

Folks aboard a Florida fishing charter on Friday enjoyed a rare encounter with a blanket octopus that swam alongside their boat for several minutes.

Folks aboard a Florida fishing charter on Friday enjoyed a rare encounter with a blanket octopus that swam alongside their boat for several minutes.

“[She] was very curious of the boat and the squid on our fishing lines,” Capt. Tony Zain, owner of Skyway Sportfishing,” told For The Win Outdoors. “It was an awesome sight.”

The accompanying footage – an audio version can be viewed here – shows the female octopus spreading her webbed arms as she swims cautiously toward the vessel, prompting a dumbfounded crewman to declare, “That is the weirdest-looking thing.”

Blanket octopuses, which reside in tropical and subtropical pelagic waters, are identifiable by sheet-like webbing that, when outstretched, can make them appear larger to potential predators.

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Video footage almost always involves females, which can measure about six feet and weigh 10,000 times more than their one-inch male counterparts, who seem to exist purely for mating.

Male blanket octopuses mate by detaching a modified sperm-filled arm, which females store in their mantle cavity for fertilization. The males almost always die after this process.



Another interesting characteristic: Blanket octopuses are immune to the stings of sea jellies, or jellyfish, and will sometimes tear off and wield the tentacles of Portuguese man-o-war jellies to ward off predators.

Passengers on the Skyway Sportfishing charter, who were fishing for snapper and grouper off Sarasota in the Gulf of Mexico, might not have known any of this while gazing down at the octopus – and who can blame them?

Stated researcher Rebecca R. Helm in a tweet: “That’s the amazing thing about open ocean life, you never know where it’s going to pop up.”

Rare sighting involves dolphin eating an octopus; no easy meal

A research team from Portugal on Wednesday watched in amazement as a Risso’s dolphin emerged with an octopus in its mouth.

A research team from Portugal on Wednesday watched in amazement as a Risso’s dolphin emerged with an octopus in its mouth (top photo).

“Sightings like this are very rare so everyone aboard in Ketos were very excited!” the group, AIMM, wrote on Facebook. “It was a good day for AIMM researchers and interns.”

While dolphins will attack an octopus, the feeding events are rarely witnessed. When they are witnessed, at the surface, it’s sometimes because the dolphins are experiencing issues with their clever and sticky adversaries.

Bottlenose dolphin with ‘naughty octopus.’ Photo: Joan Gonzalvo/Ionian Dolphin Project

The AIMM sighting brings to mind an event documented off Greece in 2012, involving a bottlenose dolphin that was jumping with an octopus clinging to its belly – more precisely, its private region.

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Joan Gonzalvo, a researcher with the Ionian Dolphin Project, used the term “naughty octopus” in a blog post describing the encounter. The dolphin eventually shook off – and presumably devoured – the pesky octopus.

Grandma the river dolphin. Photos: Jodie Lowe/Port Macquarie Cruise Adventures

In 2017 in Australia, photographer Jodie Lowe of Port Macquarie Cruise Adventures captured images showing a dolphin leaping from the Hastings River with an octopus clinging to its belly.

The company wrote on Facebook: “Awesome encounter with our local river dolphins on our National Park Eco Cruise today. We got to witness one of our local river dolphins, Grandma, with an octopus stuck to her and she was getting into midair trying to take it off.

“In the end she got it off and ate it.”

At the time, Grandma, matriarch of the Hastings River pod, was estimated to be 25-30 years old.

–Risso’s dolphin image atop this Post is courtesy of Michal Topczewski/AIMM