Divers encountered a strange fight between an octopus and a pufferfish, off Fregate Island in the Seychelles. The octopus appears to be trying to make a meal of the fish, but is that even possible? While octopuses have the capacity to eat creatures small and large, they usually don’t eat fish—especially poisonous ones. Pufferfish are filled with tetrodotoxin, a neurotoxin hundreds of times more potent than cyanide. However, no one knows how this affects octopuses. In addition to this chemical defence pufferfish are covered in spines. Octopuses' arms, however, are nimble and malleable, able to wrap around sharp edges without injury. The divers had to leave the scene before seeing the final outcome, so scientists can only speculate which of the two came out alive.

This is an octopus nursery unlike any observed before. The octopuses appear inside-out because they are in a brooding posture. Mothers wrap their arms around their bodies and their eggs to protect them. Around 1,000 octopuses were observed, and nearly all appeared to be brooding. The Muusoctopus robustusis a deep-sea species rarely observed. This is only the second deep-sea octopus nursery on record – the first was discovered off Costa Rica in spring 2018.