Taking pity on an octopus who mistook a plastic cup for a suitable home, these divers patiently convinced him a shell was a better option
Coconut octopuses are known for their strange habit of using coconut shells and seashells as shelters to protect them from predators.
This little guy found a plastic cup he thought would be perfect for the job.
A group of divers found him off the coast of Indonesia and took pity on him.
A clear plastic cup wouldn’t hide the octopus well and would likely be swallowed whole by a predator, they figured.
“While a shell is a sturdy protection, a passing eel or flounder would probably swallow the cup with the octopus in it, most likely also killing the predator or weakening it to a point where it would be soon eaten by an even bigger fish,” diver Pall Sigurdsson said.
So in order to protect the creature and prevent the plastic from making its way up the food chain, Sigurdsson and his friends spent their oxygen tanks and dive time trying to coax the animal into a more suitable home.
They tried offering it at least half a dozen shells of various shapes and sizes until they found one it liked:
“Coconut octopus are famous for being very picky about which shells they keep so we had to try with many different shells before it found one to be acceptable,” Sigurdsson said on YouTube.
