Irene Middleton, The Kraken (ANIMAL & NATURE 2022)

Encounters with the pelagic Football Octopus (Ocythoe tuberculata) in-situ are incredibly rare. This species is usually found in the open ocean at depths upto 200m. The juveniles are susceptible to predation near the surface and they use large salps or tunicates as gelatinous jackets to protect and camouflage themselves. These individuals were encountered near the Poor Knights Islands marine reserve in Northern New Zealand and added to the limited knowledge of this species behaviour in this temperate region. Some individuals momentarily left their salps to display aggressively to my camera port while others stayed tucked up inside.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.