A fisherman off the coast of Progreso, Mexico, fought to pry an octopus from his face after the creature wrapped its tentacles around his head, and his friend stood by filming and laughing.
Footage published Wednesday by The Sun shows the unnamed fisherman clawing at the octopus as its suckers latched onto his nose, mouth, and eyes. For several agonizing seconds the animal refused to let go, and the man later said he felt as though he was suffocating.
His companion, rather than lending a hand, kept the camera rolling. The fisherman eventually bent over the side of the boat, tore the octopus free, and flung it onto the deck of the vessel, choosing not to return it to the water.
The Mexico incident is the latest in a string of encounters between humans and the eight-armed mollusks that have been caught on camera in recent years. Just weeks before the Progreso episode, angler Jesser Cervantes found himself in a similar predicament while fishing off Puerto Princesa Island in Palawan, Philippines.
Cervantes reeled in an octopus that promptly attached itself to his face. Footage dated July 10 shows him in a small wooden dinghy, struggling to wrestle the creature off. He eventually resorted to clubbing it.
"The octopus I caught was very hard to handle. It almost ripped my face."
That was Cervantes describing the ordeal afterward. Neither he nor the Mexican fisherman reported confirmed injuries, though both accounts make clear the animals are far stronger, and far more determined, than casual beachgoers might assume.
Back in 2019, a Chinese food blogger known online as "seaside girl Little Seven" tried to eat a live octopus on camera. The octopus gripped her skin and refused to release. She cried in pain and tried to wrench the animal free, turning what was supposed to be a lighthearted video into a cautionary clip that circled the internet for weeks.
No serious injuries were reported in that case either, but the footage drove home a point fishermen already knew: an octopus does not give up easily.
Progreso is a port town on the northern coast of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, a region where commercial and recreational fishing draw thousands of boats onto the water year-round. The Gulf of Mexico waters off that coast are home to several octopus species, and encounters between fishermen and their catch are not unusual, though few end up plastered across the internet.
What remains unclear in the Progreso case is how the fisherman came into contact with the octopus in the first place. The footage begins with the creature already attached to his face, and no reporting has identified the species involved or whether the man sought medical attention afterward.
Cruise lines continue to route ships through the same Gulf waters. Carnival Cruise Lines, for instance, runs year-round short cruises to Mexico out of New Orleans, carrying an estimated 450,000 guests annually on two ships. Passengers on those routes pass through the same warm Gulf currents that make the Yucatán coast prime octopus habitat.
None of the recent octopus encounters have resulted in confirmed lasting harm. But three incidents across two continents in a matter of years, all caught on video, suggest that the real risk is not the octopus. It is the growing human habit of treating a powerful wild animal like a prop, whether for dinner, for clicks, or for a laugh on a fishing boat.
