Author: Atlantis Dive Resorts and Liveaboard

Diving with the great whites off the coast of South Africa definitely produced adrenalin in levels I have never experienced, but diving around tiny venomous critters puts a cognitive twist on this thrill. “Should I be fearing you, you tiny little thing?” you find yourself asking the first Blue Ring Octopus (Hapalochlaena lunulata) you meet: 12-20cm in length, it is lethal to men, carrying enough venom to kill 26 adult humans by causing respiratory depression and paralysis. If you didn’t know anything of it, you’d just go about your dive, but knowing it, and seeing how fast these tiny ones move, does create that nice thrilling rush in your body.

Collectively speaking, the world’s approximately 600 species of octopuses, squids, cuttlefishes and nautiluses are known as cephalopods. Types of mollusks, the members of this class are considered to be the most intelligent of all invertebrates, and when you watch them “do their thing”, it is hard to argue against that assessment.

From a distance they are sometimes mistaken for moray eels. But unlike morays, they are not fishes, and they often boldly swim up to divers. And once they are upon us, they often give what feels like a rather intense inspection before they move along.