iStockphoto / Kamila Kozioł
Octopuses, or octopi if you’d prefer, are amongst the most fascinating creatures on planet earth. They have 3 hearts, blue blood, they’re master escape artists, brilliant creatures who don’t possess any bones, and they have been around for hundreds of millions of years.
Curious by nature, it is not all that rare for octopuses to cause trouble for divers (and moray eels, see below). An example of this was recently captured on film when an octopus stole a diver’s GoPro camera and didn’t want to relinquish it.
A helpful diver, from Jervis Bay, Australia, shared their footage to Facebook and the clip has since gone viral with over 1.2 million views and 1.6K comments. They were swimming when another diver called for help and said an octopus had stolen their camera and wouldn’t give it back.
She wrote “He took us to where he last saw his camera and sure enough….there was the 8 armed ‘robber’ with each of them tightly wrapped around the GoPro.”
As you can see, the octopus was in possession of the GoPro so naturally there’s footage from the other perspective. That clip has made the rounds on TikTok where we see the octopus’ vantage point as it didn’t want to give up the stolen GoPro:
@australiancommunitymedia A curious octopus was filmed robbing a snorkeller of his GoPro! #underwater #underwaterthings #underwatertiktok #octopus #octopussquad🐙 #octopusstealscamera #gopro #underwaterphotography #underwaterphotographer #octopuses #jervisbay #snorkeling #snorkelling #snorkel #snorkelchallenge
Is Australia the ‘Florida of the world?’ It sure feels like it is when clips like this go viral.
Again, it is not unheard of for a curious octopus to claim a camera for its own. This profane video went viral on TikTok just two weeks ago with an octopus wrapping itself around a GoPro:
https://www.tiktok.com/@livhaah/video/7251500870649531655
Call me crazy, but I think we should just let the octopi keep the cameras for a few days and see what kind of footage results.