Octopus Wolf-Eel Rodeo at Day Island Wall

seainggreen · Post by **seainggreen** » Thu Oct 20, 2011 8:55 pm

Just over a month ago a great group of tech diving gals got together for a banner weekend of diving. During one of our dives out at Day Island, we came across something I'd never seen before, and that I may very well never see again. I managed to capture it on film to share. Enjoy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHrO_Pj4dgc[/youtube]

The same clip is also viewable on Vimeo under "Seainggreen", but for some reason the link wouldn't cooperate here this evening.

Happy diving,
Seainggreen

renoun · Post by **renoun** » Thu Oct 20, 2011 9:03 pm

Wow, a pictures or it didn't happen moment caught on Video. Anybody know why the video didn't embed?

fishb0y · Post by **fishb0y** » Thu Oct 20, 2011 9:24 pm

Awesome!!!

spatman · Post by **spatman** » Thu Oct 20, 2011 10:44 pm

That is one hungry octo.

mz53480 · Post by **mz53480** » Thu Oct 20, 2011 10:56 pm

Yea-haw!

MZ

John Rawlings · Post by **John Rawlings** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 4:05 am

spatman wrote:That is one hungry octo.

Actually, my guess is that he's trying NOT to get eaten!

Tom Nic · Post by **Tom Nic** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 7:24 am

John Rawlings wrote:
spatman wrote:That is one hungry octo.
Actually, my guess is that he's trying NOT to get eaten!

Reminds me of the seals doubling back on Great Whites - "anywhere but the end with the teeth"!

Diver_C · Post by **Diver_C** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 8:42 am

That was great, thank you!!!

oldsalt · Post by **oldsalt** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 9:19 am

My first thought when I saw this was of the tentacles hanging out of the lingcod mouth in Jan's posting. I go along with John Rawlings. That octo better hang on.
-Curt

RoxnDox · Post by **RoxnDox** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 9:34 am

Wow... That is Sooooooooo cool!

Yeeeeeeee-Hawwwwww!!!!!!!

Jim

John Rawlings · Post by **John Rawlings** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 9:41 am

oldsalt wrote:My first thought when I saw this was of the tentacles hanging out of the lingcod mouth in Jan's posting. I go along with John Rawlings. That octo better hang on.
-Curt

Yeah....it's clear that the wolf-eel is trying to "scrape" the octopus off by turning on its side and sliding along rocks. I wonder what eventually happened!

LCF · Post by **LCF** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 10:02 am

"Riding the Tiger"!

This is definitely video photo competition material.

Tom Nic · Post by **Tom Nic** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 12:05 pm

John Rawlings wrote:
oldsalt wrote:My first thought when I saw this was of the tentacles hanging out of the lingcod mouth in Jan's posting. I go along with John Rawlings. That octo better hang on.
-Curt
Yeah....it's clear that the wolf-eel is trying to "scrape" the octopus off by turning on its side and sliding along rocks. I wonder what eventually happened!

Yes, there are lots of critters out there that love some octo sushi!!

And.... this goes to show ya that if you dive, dive lots, dive with a camera, you see some AMAZING things!

What a fortunate moment to be able to see this, and how cool to invest time, money, energy and skill in it's use to be able to photograph something that very few people have ever seen and then get to share it!??!??

Kudos!

seainggreen · Post by **seainggreen** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 6:22 pm

John Rawlings wrote:
oldsalt wrote:My first thought when I saw this was of the tentacles hanging out of the lingcod mouth in Jan's posting. I go along with John Rawlings. That octo better hang on.
-Curt
Yeah....it's clear that the wolf-eel is trying to "scrape" the octopus off by turning on its side and sliding along rocks. I wonder what eventually happened!

I can tell you what eventually happened... as we made our way past the same spot, another pair of divers that was diving with us came across the wolf eel with octopus tentacles hanging out of its mouth. I didn't see it myself. So... apparently our little cowboy ultimately ended up as dinner. Such is life in the wild underwater world.

Thanks everyone for the nice words. It was a fun short film to make and some cool footage from which to craft it.

I'm currently working on some footage from way back in June from the Channel Islands and will post/share when it's all done.

Happy diving,
Laurynn

Penopolypants · Post by **Penopolypants** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 8:16 pm

That was so full of awesome! And I hope it was another octo that ended up as dinner, so that the smart ones like that can continue to reproduce. I, for one, would welcome our new cowboy octopus overlords.

coulterboy · Post by **coulterboy** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 9:58 pm

Kudos to both -the eel and octo! For the Octo-the ride of his life - more than 8 seconds. Way to go Octocowboy!
For the eel - You Da Man! - The Last Man Standing - that is, if he really ate the Octo, or just got one of the tentacles.

Only the strong survive!

Great Clip!

RoxnDox · Post by **RoxnDox** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 10:11 pm

Penopolypants wrote:I, for one, would welcome our new cowboy octopus overlords.

Well, that's my new sig line...

Good thing I was munching on Girl Scout cookies and not drinking something when I read that...

Jim

-Aaron- · Post by **-Aaron-** » Sat Oct 22, 2011 10:24 pm

Seainggreen,

Great video thanks for sharing

.

On a technical note, the Vimeo embedding here requires a www in the URL and by default Vimeo doesn't have them on theirs. If you just type www. in your link between "http://" and "vimeo.com" it should work. I embedded your Vimeo video below to demonstrate.

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/30531921[/vimeo]

Northwest Dive Club