The Thieving Octopus

[Skating101]

On a dive at Shelly Beach in Sydney a rather friendly Sydney Octopus tried to steal my camera and then tried to latch onto my dive buddy. Enjoy!

[video=youtube;fwZMbdgUlmw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwZMbdgUlmw&hd=1[/video]

Visit our blog 2fishoutofwater.wordpress.com

Filmed: Nicholas Hart, Susan Tong
Edited: Nicholas Hart, Susan Tong

 

[Jax]

Thanks so much for sharing this! It's wonderful!!!!

 

[loko2dive]

that's cool

 

[Tigerman]

Lucky you. Wish the ones I see was a bit more "social" as well, they tend to just wanna swim away from me

 

[Skating101]

Thanks guys yeah they normally arent this social, he didnt seemed scared at all. Maybe he was lonely?

Edit: Btw i had no idea they were this strong, when it had grabbed my camera I really had to pull to get it back

 

[Tigerman]

If he was scared rather than curious I think he would have inked you?

 

[cam_snapper]

Bit torn by this, to be honest. On the one hand, clearly a good video. On the other - why touch? It's one thing if a creature chooses to reach out and touch you, but I think you have clearly encouraged it, and played with it. Why? I just think we shouldn't get into the habit of touching creatures at all. We may damage them, they may damage us, and I just think it's a bad habit.

Interested to hear your thoughts in response though.

 

[Skating101]

Cam, while we definitely try to not touch any wildlife, in this instance it was placing our hand their and letting him decide. I guess it was more of a spur of the moment action which was hardly based on common sense (you can hear her screams as the octopus leaves the rock) and in hindsight it probably wasnt the smartest decision. However that said we feel quite privilaged that the Octopus made the decision to have the encounter and we certainly appreciate it for doing so.

 

[Marty Cerven]

Lol that is a cool video, Im kind of in the same boat as cam_snapper but it doesn't look like you were forcing the issue it just grabbed your cam at first then you just got a little carried away with the finger.

Not anywhere near as bad as the video of the guy that was feeding sausages to an eel which eventually mistook his thumb for a sausage and had a little finger food to end the feast.

 

[Nitro91]

wheres the octopus at shelly beach?