The Western Australia common octopus is indeed a fan of crabs. Lance Karlson took to Instagram to share his bizarre experience of being attacked by a grumpy octopus at Geographe Bay in Dunsborough earlier this month. He dove underwater to take a look, and he remembered a documentary that he had watched in which he learned octopuses tended to pile up crab shells." At this juncture, Karlson was whipped on his arm and on his back by an octopus, causing modest amounts of pain. "About 30 meters out, he noticed a pile of crab shells piled neatly together. to the water about 20 minutes later," the Times reported. "Amused by the interaction but ultimately unfazed, returned. Sadly, this cephalopod's potential warning shot was not heeded. I think this is often pre-emptive aggression, meant to signal ‘don’t mess with me,’ rather than aggression seriously meant to harm the 'invader.' ![]() My guess is that the octopus here is sending a warning meaning 'back off' … Octopuses will lunge or shoot an arm out when they feel a fish, another octopus or a human is in their space. Speaking to The New York Times, Peter Ulric Tse, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at Dartmouth College who studies octopus cognition, said that octopuses, in general, "can express what we would call aggression when they feel threatened or when they feel their territory is under threat.” Tse said that the behavior captured in Karlson's video is likely a warning not an attempted attack. ![]() The creature came after him again later and struck him on the arm, before. This species, as seen in the video, is "commonly found in and around inshore reef systems and sandy benthos" and it "completes its life cycle in nearshore and continental shelf waters." In a video that has gone viral, the octopus can be seen in shallow waters lashing out at geologist Lance Karlson. This region is home to the Western Australian common octopus - closely related to the common Sydney octopus but recently determined to be its own species. The video was filmed in Dunsborough, Western Australia. There is no reason to think the video is anything but legitimate.
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