Have there been any documented fatal attacks on humans by large squid or octopus?
http://www.nswoceanbaths.info/topics/t009.htm
http://www.marine-medic.com/pages/medical/marine_animal_species.asp
Oh, I was forgetting about the blue-ringed octopus! I was not thinking about the tiny, poisonous type when I posted my question. I was thinking more along the lines of the larger, man-sized or bigger, cephalopods.
Ah. The blue-ringed octopus was fresh in my mind, as it was something Cecil asked me to look at several months ago. I don’t know of physical attacks resulting in death, but I’ll bet someone else on here does.
Then of course there is the dream of the fisherman’s wife…a totally different type of attack.
In fiction, there’s a near-fatal attack by an octopus in Victor Hugo’s Toilers of the Sea. Jules Verne almost certaionly had that in ind when he wrote 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (in which one sailor is pulled under by a squid, and presumably dies.) And an octopus kills
And a guy dies from octopus in the Ian Fleming James Bond story Octopussy
I don’t know of any real-life cases, though.
A friend of mine choked on calamari once, does that count?
I always assumed that squid acted much like a jellyfish. Not so. They can be very active, scary, smart and aggressive. I saw a video once of a man going down in a shark cage into a group of Humbolt squid. Those bastards seem to talk by lighting up their heads and they are scary aggressive. I knew that an octopus is smart but I didn’t know that about squid. They seemed like they were problem solving about how to kill the guy in the shark cage until he gave up. I will try to find something online about it.
I couldn’t find the video that I was thinking of but this video shows an attempted attack at the end. It also shows one lighting up which freaks me out.
A few times in the Caribbean I have been followed by small squid when diving. Octopus always seems to want to flee.
I saw that program recently and what actually was in progress was hunting and killing the squid. As you have described, they can communicate quite effectively and their fear was expressed as aggression.
The team later dived with the squid shoal while they were not under attack and their behaviour was what we expect from squid, curious and quite friendly, not unlike Dolphin.
They are definitely extremely interesting and fascinating creatures.
Squid and octopus belong to the cephalopods, which are some of the most intelligent (in terms of problem solving) organisms in the sea. Jelllyfish and other cnidarians, on the other hand, have no central nervous, limbic, or circulatory system and can be considered closers to a colony of differentiated cells than a unified organism. I doubt common squid regularly found near the surface or at recreational diving depths would bother a person, though they might swim near a diver in hope of collecting food. There are a few instances of questionable veracity of the Colossal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) attacking people or small boats; this creature is certainly more aggressive and may prey on marine mammals, but would rarely be found in shallow depths or near land. Octopus are almost universally shy of people and almost invariably camouflage or retreat in the presence of divers, although I’ve found the California Two-Spot to be curious and sometimes playful. Neither octopus or squid are known to use their beak for attack, preferring instead to grapple prey with tentacles and kill by constriction and suffocation.
Fatal attacks by venomous octopus are another issue, but are done invariably (as with venomous rajiformes) in a purely defense context.
Stranger
It’s been a long time since I read Kon Tiki (about Thor Heyerdahl’s Pacific crossing on a balsa raft), but I recall the crew sometimes saw what they believed were giant squid’s eyes looking at them from the water at night. I think Heyerdahl suggested that the squid were more comfortable coming close to the balsa raft than they would be to a modern ship. If so, it makes sense that giant squid encounters would have grown fewer (and less likely to be believed) as deep-seagoing ships got larger.
If the account mentions any actual squid attacks, I don’t remember it.
How the hell can people live in Australia? It seems like 90% of the poisonous insects, spiders, snakes, and other land creatures on earth live there, as well as man-eating crocodiles, plus 90% of the poisonous cephalopods, urchins, rays, jellyfish (some of which are too small to see) and other nefarious marine creatures, plus 90% of the man-eating sharks.* Aussies take a huge risk just leaving their houses every day!
*Evolution must have been pretty intense the last few 50 million years or so.
The blue-ringed octopus is not really a danger to humans unless you insist on dragging it out of the water and carrying it around. I’m unaware of any unprovoked attracts.
I haven’t a cite for this I’m afraid but I am certain that I read in the BBC news of a teenager being killed by one a couple of years ago.
It was reported as an unprovoked attack but that would be hard to confirm.
I think I remember reading some of that book. IIRC a crew member fell out in a sleeping bag. He got out and back on board, but something took the bag and pulled it under.
I have a wonderful little book called Coping With America. It’s a verty dry bit of British humor (obviously intended for British consumption – I don’t know how the copy I bought ended up in a New Hampshire used book store) about the US. It characterizes the United States as a country that’s always either too hot or too cold, and simply crawling with poisonous snakes, insects, and plants. I’m sure Australians feel as threatened as we in New England do by our local wildlife.
To be fair, the danger of the wildlife in New England isn’t much to write home about. The biggest threats are hitting a moose or a deer with a car. There are rare bears and maybe an extremely rare mountain lion around but there isn’t much danger from snakes. For some reason our property has more snakes than I have ever seen anywhere. Most of them are garter snakes but we have also had some pretty large brown snakes and black snakes that I have never figured out what they are.
My 5 year old daughter who has a personality very similar to Wednesday Adams loves them. On Monday, she played outside and marched back into the house announcing that she had a new pet which was a garter snake on her arms. My MIL turned around to see what it was and almost fainted because she had already let the snake loose. They eventually caught it and it went back outside while my daughter cried.
My native Louisiana is a different story. It has all four of the major categories of venomous snakes in the U.S. (a few kinds of rattlesnakes, copperheads, coral snakes and water moccasins). The rattlesnakes can grow to be huge and I have seen people that killed some over 7 feet long. Cooperheads aren’t too bad. Coral snakes are the most venomous snakes in the U.S. If you get bitten by one, you have to be airlifted immediately to Miami because that is the only place they can treat their bite but coral snakes are not aggressive and can’t even strike so you would have to work at it to get bitten. Water moccasins are the ones to watch out for. They can infest lakes and ponds and they are the only aggressive snakes in the U.S. They won’t flee and I have personally seen them attack the side of a canoe. I even hooked one with a fishing pole once and pulled it out of the water. Very bad and terrifying move. My best friend cut the line while screaming at me for doing that. Some of my best days have been spent shooting water moccasins with a shotgun and .22 rifle.
Louisiana and Florida have plenty of alligators as do a few more Southern states. Unlike crocodiles however, they aren’t very aggressive. I have swam in alligator infested water without much worry even when they were visible from afar. There is such a thing as an American crocodile in Florida but they are endangered and nothing to worry about. OTOH, alligators are farmed in Louisiana and their meat is popular, tasty, and healthy.
I can see how people would think that the U.S. is awash with dangerous creatures. It is true if you go to the right places and not so true in the North.