The behaviors of the octopuses They continue to fascinate the world with each discovery that is made known. A camera crew has managed to film the coconut octopus (Amphioctopus marginatus), also known as reticulated octopus, shooting small stones as if they were projectiles against predatory fish, a behavior that is already being investigated by scientists.
The incredible images are part of the new documentary by Netflix Our oceansand show an octopus of this species using its siphon—a type of tube that these cephalopods use to propel themselves through the water— as if it were a weaponwhile hiding inside a clam shell.
“He was shooting fish with stones through his siphon! We were very surprised. No one had ever filmed veiny octopuses before using their siphons as weapons“said Katy Moorhead, assistant producer and field director of the series, in statements to Live Science.
The images were taken in Southeast Asia, about 9 meters below the surface of the ocean. At first, the filmmakers were filming there to study the impact of plastic pollution on the ocean through a solitary octopus living on a seabed full of garbage. However, their surprise came later, when reviewing the footage they observed a behavior never seen before until then in those animals.
This discovery prompted the team to return to the area to find out if this octopus gesture had been an isolated event or was a common practice for this species. Roger Munns, the director of photography, managed to capture this behavior in detail after spend 110 hours with the octopus for three weeks.
That’s how he saw him collecting rocks and debris, loading them into his siphon and then shooting them as projectiles against the fish, as if it were a gun. In order to better capture the shots, the images had to be reproduced in slow motionindicate from the documentary team.
“Faced with a large fish that was giving away the location of its clam hide, the octopus shot a stone from its siphon and hit the fish directly in the face“, for his part, executive producer James Honeyborne has described to Live Science.
Thanks to these images, the behavior of these octopuses is being analyzed by scientists to better understand how and why they act this way. “The fish were clearly startled and then moved away from the octopus, suggesting that It is an effective deterrent“concluded the producer of the series, Jonathan Smith.