collision detection: When good octopi go bad

September 03, 2005

When good octopi go bad

Okay, so -- the Seattle aquarium had a couple of Giant Pacific Octopi, and for logistical reasons they had to temporarily put one of them in a tank holding several sharks. They figured the octopus would be okay because it can change color to conceal itself from predators. But over the next week, the marine scientists came into work to find sharks are lying dead on the floor of the aquarium. Whatever was going on? They stayed around one evening and trained a camera on the water to see.

The result? Behold live footage of an octopus kicking the living crap out of a shark. It's just mind-blowing: First, it skulks in the rocks, waits for the shark to swim by -- then jumps up, wraps its tentacles around, and totally wails on the fish. I mean, seriously, that shark got 0wned.

Man. When the cephalopods finally rise up? We are so not ready.

(Thanks to Majikthise for this one!)

Posted by Clive Thompson at September 03, 2005 06:45 PM

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Tracked on September 12, 2005 10:42 AM

Comments

I swear the squid posts are my favorites.

Posted by: pjm at September 3, 2005 7:58 PM

Clive - the link is to a praying mantis catching a hummingbird. Also interesting :)

Posted by: Ole Eichhorn at September 3, 2005 8:08 PM

I think this is the URL:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/octopus/media_players_blue/shark_hi.html

Posted by: Carl at September 3, 2005 11:32 PM

Thanks for the link Carl. Too bad it is Real only. I refuse to install that stuff, it takes over the computer. I guess I'll have to wait for a Windows Media or Quicktime translation.

Posted by: Ole Eichhorn at September 4, 2005 12:01 AM

Carl, thanks for posting that! My bad -- I fixed the link now.

Ole, yeah, I know, I freakin' hate the way every different organization uses their own little wall-off proprietary media players.

pjm, I kind of live for the squid posts too.

Posted by: Clive at September 4, 2005 2:34 PM

oooo.... do you have any idea WHY the octopus would do this? Does it just not like sharks? Is it just a bad octopus? Also, what is the size scale here? How big is that shark? I don't know why, but this video seemed to appeal to my nervous system somehow. I usually like octopi, but watching this had me all... "yuuuuck". And I really hope the shark was very small.

Posted by: eke at September 6, 2005 9:04 AM

I think the shark is about three or four feet long, according to the commentary on the video. I wonder what size human that octopus could take on?

Posted by: Clive at September 6, 2005 1:24 PM