Woman picks up tiny cute octopus without realising it's one of world's deadliest creatures

An Australian woman unknowingly put herself in a potentially fatal position after she picked up an adorable octopus, only for it to be one of the deadliest creatures.

Sharing a video on TikTok of herself cradling the animal in her hands, many TikTok users jumped to warn her from interacting with the deadly sea creature. The animal, which was found in Australia, is a blue-ringed octopus.

The TikTok user @katapillah captioned her video: "The dangerously beautiful sea."

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According to Marine Bio, the octopus secretes two types of venom to use against prey and predators.

One of the blue-ringed octopus' venoms is used for hunting crabs and shrimp, which it feeds on, while the other venom, tetrodotoxin, acts as a paralytic to its predators. It is extremely toxic if a human comes in contact with it.

"The venoms are secreted into the blue ringed octopus' saliva, but the mechanism for poisoning its victim is not well understood. Either the venom is expelled in the saliva into the water or the octopus bites its prey or predator," reads the website.

"All Aussies just gulped and shook there heads," one person wrote.

Another person sharply added, "Natural selection at its best."

"Mate do enjoying dying or something?!!!!! It’s a blue ring octopus throw it back n runnnnnnn," warned one user.

One comment read: "OMFG why would you? you're lucky to still be here. mind you they are pretty elusive... most Aussies won't ever see one. but we all know not to touch."

After a TikToker commented saying that the person who posted the video was "very lucky," they admitted in a reply that they didn't know "until a half-hour later what it was."

"How does it feel to have something in your hand that decides if you die or not hahaha," wrote another.

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