{"id":64336,"date":"2025-08-12T16:09:05","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T16:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/64336\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T16:09:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T16:09:05","slug":"giant-octopus-grabs-camera-from-diver-and-films-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/64336\/","title":{"rendered":"Giant Octopus Grabs Camera From Diver and Films Itself"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/petapixel.com\/2025\/08\/12\/giant-octopus-grabs-camera-from-diver-and-films-itself\/giant-pacific-octopus-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-809481 nofollow noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-perfmatters-preload=\"\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Giant-Pacific-Octopus-800x420.jpg\" alt=\"A large orange octopus spreads its tentacles underwater, surrounded by sea urchins, rocks, and other marine life in an aquarium setting.\" width=\"800\" height=\"420\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-809481\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A diver had a \u201conce in a lifetime\u201d encounter with a giant Pacific octopus after the sea creature showed interest in him and his camera \u2014 grabbing it from him and then giving him a hug. <\/p>\n<p>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 \u201cparticularly large\u201d octopus. <\/p>\n<p>\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 Roney <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/british-columbia\/pacific-octopus-video-itself-1.7605240\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"follow external noopener nofollow\">tells CBC.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Roney recalls handing the camera to the octopus after it gave the device a \u201cbig hug.\u201d The creature then strolled about with it, inadvertently filming its sucker-lined arms and the pale expanse of its underbelly.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u201cremarkable.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u201cOctopuses, even though they are invertebrates, have very, very well-developed brains and they are highly intelligent creatures,\u201d Anna Hall, a marine mammal zoologist at Seaview Marine Sciences, <a href=\"https:\/\/cheknews.ca\/giant-pacific-octopus-shoots-video-of-itself-after-claiming-camera-from-b-c-divers-1271492\/\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"follow external noopener nofollow\">tells Chek News.<\/a> \u201cI think this giant Pacific octopus would have taken an  interest in the divers and perhaps even their equipment, and wanted to find out more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>      <\/p>\n<p>Roney praised the octopus\u2019s camera work, telling CBC that it is \u201chonestly the best footage of inside an octopus\u2019 web I\u2019ve seen an octopus take\u2026 better than mine.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Octopuses are truly amazing creatures. During the filming of BBC wildlife documentary, Spy in the Ocean, a <a href=\"https:\/\/petapixel.com\/2023\/06\/07\/spy-octopus-camera-gets-hug-from-real-octopus-in-wildlife-documentary\/\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">camera disguised as an animatronic octopus<\/a> also got a tentacled cuddle from a real octopus. <\/p>\n<p>\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 adds Roney. \u201cAnd it makes me happy to see people seeing our local marine life here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Image credits: Header photo licensed via <a href=\"https:\/\/depositphotos.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow external noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\">Depositphotos<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A diver had a \u201conce in a lifetime\u201d encounter with a giant Pacific octopus after the sea creature&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,41296,41297,41298,4779,20420,66,40317,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-64336","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-diver","11":"tag-giantpacificoctopus","12":"tag-marinelife","13":"tag-nature","14":"tag-octopus","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-underwaterphotographer","17":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64336","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=64336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}