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Old 01-31-2019, 03:59 PM   #1437
Carruthers
Junior Master Dwellar
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Buckinghamshire UK
Posts: 4,059
It's Australian. It is therefore capable of killing you without reason or notice.



Quote:
Tourist picks up deadly blue ringed octopus with bare hands

A shy and tiny, but lethal animal, has once again caused panic after a video uploaded to Reddit showed a tourist holding a blue-ringed octopus in their uncovered hand.

The video was captioned "what a pretty octopus" written in Mandarin as the unsuspecting beachgoer handled and filmed the brightly coloured sea creature.

Marine ecology expert Michael Keough from the University of Melbourne said picking up an octopus exposes the hand to the beak, a few millimetres-long horny barb located on the bottom of the octopus between its tentacles. "It can only bite if it's on top of something," he said.

With a beak that pierces the exoskeletons of crabs, the octopus releases a neurotoxin from its glands that causes paralysis, causing its prey to stop breathing and die "within an hour".
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Last edited by Carruthers; 01-31-2019 at 04:26 PM.
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