By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer |
February 2, 2017 11:30am ET
This story was updated Feb. 2 at
11:30 a.m. EST.
A wild octopus surprised an
Australian diver this week by suddenly, and quite dramatically, inflating
itself with water, ballooning up like a parachute. Later, when the diver posted
a video of the interaction online, she wondered whether the octopus was trying
to intimidate her with its grandiose size.
That's possible, marine
biologists said, but they can't agree on what caused the curious behavior.
One idea is that the octopus was
hunting for food, said Kathleen Sullivan Sealey, an associate professor of
biology at the University of Miami, who doesn't know the diver but watched the
video online.
In the video post, the diver
noted how the octopus "blew itself up like a parachute multiple
times," turning its body and eight legs into a giant net as the animal
traversed the rocky and sponge-filled ocean floor off the coast of Melbourne,
Australia.
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