When it comes to cinematography, a giant Pacific octopus that borrowed a camera from two divers earns a solid \u201c10 out of 10.\u201d<\/p>\n
Underwater videographer John Roney said he and his longtime diving buddy Chris Mullen went out on Aug. 5 to Nanoose Bay on the east side of\u00a0Vancouver\u00a0Island, a renowned spot for large octopus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Roney said they came across several, but one \u201cparticularly large\u201d octopus\u2014 as large as three metres wide, arm to arm \u2014 caught their attention.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was resting under a ledge, but immediately showed interest in them after they passed by, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt 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,\u201d said Roney.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Watch the video below: B.C. octopus borrows camera, captures shot inside its arms.<\/p>\n
The resulting video was a mesmerizing display of the creature\u2019s pink underbelly, its sucker-covered arms fanned out like an umbrella over the camera.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was carrying the camera around for a little bit, aiming it at a wall and stuff. It was doing some filming on its own,\u201d laughed Roney, \u201cIt was even kind enough to use its suckers to turn it off after (the camera) was running for about three minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roney, a\u00a0Vancouver\u00a0Island-based underwater videographer who has been working as a documentary filmmaker for many years, said the animal\u2019s camera work was excellent.<\/p>\n
\u201cTen out of 10 underwater videographer for the octopus,\u201d Roney said \u201cHonestly, the best footage of inside an octopus\u2019 web I\u2019ve seen an octopus take.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBetter than me by far,\u201d Mullen quipped.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Roney later posted the video online, giving the octopus a credit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The footage has received thousands of likes and comments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After the animal was done with the camera, it jumped onto Mullen with its arms around him and suckers on his mask.<\/p>\n
Roney said he was able to capture the \u201chug.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rather than being aggressive, the octopus appeared curious, using its suckers to explore its environment, Roney said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so you could see it was holding on to him, but it wasn\u2019t grabbing him,\u201d said Roney, \u201cChris looked like he was having a good time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a very gentle hug,\u201d recalled Mullen about the close encounter, \u201cThis is what I was hoping for, this was what I wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roney said he has done about 1,500 dives over the years, but has only had two close interactions with an octopus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Giant Pacific octopuses are fascinating, interactive animals, and every single time he encounters one, he can\u2019t get enough of them, Roney said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Victoria-born marine biologist Jennifer Mather has watched the video, and said the octopus wasn\u2019t deliberately taking a selfie even though its work was beautiful.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mather, an octopus expert with the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, said when an octopus finds something interesting and potentially edible, it will pick it up and put it underneath the arm web, which is exactly what we see in the video.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the person who had the camera, of course, got pictures because the camera was still running. But it doesn\u2019t have anything to do with the octopus taking selfies. Sorry,\u201d said Mather.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mather said the animals are very smart in other ways, likening their personalities to cats.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In most situations, when they see divers who crowd around them, they\u2019ll sneak away or hide, but an underwater camera with shiny, fresh lights could be quite interesting to them, making them wonder what they can do with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause octopuses do play \u2014 not social play, but object play,\u201d said Mather.<\/p>\n
Roney said the community response to the video has been incredible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou really see that people are fascinated by these animals because they\u2019re so intelligent and they\u2019re so curious, and they\u2019re also so otherworldly, right. They\u2019re so different from anything that you\u2019d see on land,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it makes me happy to see people seeing our local marine life here.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 9, 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to cinematography, a giant Pacific octopus that borrowed a camera from two divers earns a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,1062,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-57721","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-video","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}