It was “armed” and dangerous. Wild footage shows the moment an octopus latched onto a fisherman’s face with an 8-armed death grip. Jesser Cervantes was on a wooden dinghy near the Philippines when he reeled in the spunky sea creature, and it suddenly latched onto his face. He desperately tried to peel the tentacles off his face, but the mollusk spread around his head, at one point covering his mouth with its powerful suckers. To escape the sticky situation, Cervantes grabbed a cut bamboo stem and repeatedly hit the octopus to loosen its grip. The octopus eventually let go and Cervantes tossed it back into the ocean, catching his breath after the terrifying game of tug-of-war. Octopuses have incredibly powerful suckers and flexible bodies that allow them to cling tightly to prey and almost any surface. Each of their hundreds of suckers function as independent, airtight vacuum seals powered by their decentralized nervous system, making it almost impossible to remove one without peeling away each limb.
