What happens when an octopus jumps onto a shark and rides around town?
Of course, “Sharktopus.”
A rare sighting, filmed on video off the coast of New Zealand and shared by scientists at the University of Auckland, shows a Māori octopus riding on a macaw shark.
The university said the December 2023 encounter was “one of the strangest things the University of Marine Scientists in Auckland has ever seen. It was certainly a mystical sight… The octopus is mostly on the seabed, and the short fin maco sharks aren’t deep (in favor) like that.”
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A rare sighting shared by scientists captured off the coast of New Zealand and belonging to the University of Auckland shows a Māori octopus riding on a macaw shark. (Auckland University)
University researchers were searching for a shark feeding a frenzy in Hauraki Bay near Gulf, near the Gulf Bay, near the Owau Island, when a mako shark was discovered with an “orange patch” on its head.
Researchers fired a drone, put GoPro cameras in the water, and “we saw something that we never forgot. The octopus sat on a shark’s head and stuck to tentacles,” wrote Professor Rochelle Constantine of Auckland in a university work last week.
Researchers fired a drone, put GoPro cameras in the water, and “we saw something that we never forgot. The octopus sat on a shark’s head and stuck to tentacles,” wrote Professor Rochelle Constantine of Auckland in a university work last week. (Auckland University)
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Constantine didn’t know what happened next to the “Sharctopath” as researchers moved 10 minutes later, but added that “octopus could have been very experienced so the fastest shark species in the world can reach (30 miles).”
“In the beginning it was like, ‘Is that a buoy?’,” Constantine told the New York Times this week. “Are you caught up in fishing gear or was it a big bite?”
Researchers said the octopus was due to “substantial experience” with the world’s fastest shark. (Auckland University)
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She noted that “it turns out that we need a significant amount of real estate on the shark’s head,” and that neither animal appears to be plagued by the encounter.
“The shark looked very happy and the octopus looked very happy. It was a very calm scene,” she said.
