Octopus Attack

As if creel fishermen haven't enough problems on their hands, we now have graphic evidence of a further threat - attacks by octopus.

Justin Cameron took these pictures of an octopus he found in one of his creels in Glenmore Bay. He removed it from the creel to let his dog, Norman, have a look at it, and it escaped up the wheelhouse door.

Justin says, "They are common in the prawn creels in the summer but not so much in the winter. They will kill every prawn that's in the creel." The escapee was recaptured and returned unharmed to the sea.

Although this looks to me like a specimen of the common octopus, Octopus vulgaris, the distribution maps on marLIN show that the common species isn't found in local waters, and that it is therefore more likely to be a curled octopus Eledone cirrhosa. Fortunately for Justin, neither species grows much above 1.5m in diameter - see link to marLIN here.

Many thanks to Justin for pictures & information.