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Guest Thinkers — May 13, 2010

Video: Octopus vs. Subcompact Shark

Lindsay Beyerstein

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Octopus and hidden cameras go together like chocolate and peanut butter. You never know what those crazy cephalopods will get up to. Today, Boing Boing dug up some neat old National Geographic hidden camera footage that solved a marine murder mystery: Why were so many spiny dogfish turning up dead at the aquarium?

Better to watch it with the sound off, though. The voiceover really milks the octopus vs. shark angle. Yes, spiny dogfish are a species of small schooling Atlantic shark–but the narrator is laying it on a little thick the whole unstoppable predator trope. Oregon Expat explains why the clip hardly depicts the Cthulu vs. Jaws scenario the narrator sets up for you.

Photo credit: Flickr user Photocapy, distributed under Creative Commons.

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