If you thought this was the most impressive thing you’ve ever seen an octopus do, the skills of this New Zealand aquarium’s octopus might have that beat.
Sony placed a compact underwater camera inside a tank at SEA LIFE in Auckland — which then taught its octopus Rambo to take pictures of visitors that the aquarium sells for two dollars a pop!
Rambo’s trainer tells the website ‘Cult of Mac’ Rambo only needed three tries before she understood the process of pressing the red button, comprehension which the trainer says is faster than a dog or a human — while the picture quality of course is helped by the fact the camera is attached to the side of the tank.
Although Sony bills Rambo as ’the first octopus photographer,' she’s actually just the latest. In 2010 a New Zealand diver says an octopus reached out, seized his camera and swam away — leading the diver on a five minute chase.
In 2014 an octopus latched on to a reef conservation photographer’s camera off the coast of Florida and started removing the underwater housing before the diver was able to pry it out of its arms —and earlier in 2015 an octopus in a Middlebury college tank grabbed a GoPro used to shoot some science footage and turned it around on the photographer.
Maybe octopi are just born to take pictures. They’ve certainly got the dexterity for it. Probably the hardest part is having to keep all those extra thumbs out of the picture.
