Video of a fight between a seal and a giant octopus has gone viral, showing a battle to the death that stretched more than 20 minutes.
The video came from the coast of New Zealand’s South Island, where a group of kayakers noticed a disturbance on the water and realized that a large male seal was attacking a giant octopus. As Fox News reported, the group then pulled out their cameras to document the gruesome battle.
As the New Zealand Herald reported, the 265-pound seal likely pulled the octopus up from the ocean floor and proceeded to tear it apart leg by leg.
Conner Staple, a guide with Kaikoura Kayaks, who was leading a group of tourists on what was supposed to be a leisurely float on the water, told the outlet that the fight quickly turned into a slaughter as the seal tore apart a favorite meal.
“This octopus had no chance really. Seals love eating them and will eat up to 7kg of octopus a day, around here it is a staple part of their diet,” Stapley said.
Incredible moment monster 19 stone seal wrestles giant octopus in epic 20-minute battle https://t.co/o9qcdXjEXE
— The Sun (@TheSun) June 22, 2017
Tourists witness epic fight to the death between enormous 265lb seal and octopus https://t.co/2f3JCQ7yB0 pic.twitter.com/1vsMibZaAC
— The Mirror (@DailyMirror) June 22, 2017
Footage of the fight between the seal and the giant octopus quickly went viral online, garnering headlines from across the globe. But Matt Foy, owner of Kaikoura Kayaks, said it’s actually not all that unusual for them to see a seal take apart an octopus. Foy said the kayakers have come across battles before, with some others stretching as long as the 20 minutes that the viral video captured.
But Stapley noted that it is a bit unusual to find a seal feeding on an octopus at that time of day.
“It is quite rare to see something like this and rarer at this time of day,” said Stapley, via the New York Daily News . “Normally you would see New Zealand fur seals feeding in the evenings.”
Stapley said he suspected something could be happening when he saw a group of birds gathering nearby, apparently waiting in the hopes of scoring some bits of food themselves.
Video of the fight between the seal and the octopus can be seen below.
While the video of the seal and giant octopus fighting has been gone viral around the globe, the battle may have been a bit more traumatic for the kayakers who saw it in person. As Stapley noted, the fight was so violent that some bits of octopus actually ended up in the kayak.
[Featured Image by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images]
