The hairy octopus is the real Holy Grail of cephalopods. Mimics and Wonderpuss can now be found on many sites dived by recreational divers on a fairly reliable and regular basis. I think the more we venture out into new sites the more of these will start to see!
The first time I saw one was a photograph which I later found out was taken at The Twilight Zone in Ambon many, many years ago! I think it was in a magazine and I still see the same photo is still being used to this day. I thought it was so cool that I still remember who it was that took the shot it was Becca Saunders!
My own first hand experience at finding one was on an exploratory dive whilst I was working at Wakatobi Dive Resort. I was just with one diver who wasn't so keen on critters, I was going absolutely nutty when I seen it, though he wasn’t so interested in it. Then whilst in Ambon I was with a lady who came across one on a wall, only she never stayed with it long enough and didn't notice it being hairy. It seems they don't always display the hairy branches of skin that well! Then January this year while diving a different place in Komodo, we were going along with only a few average critters being seen... then all of sudden I noticed a little dark lump that moved on a piece of dead coral, when I came closer I noticed it was a tiny octopus, I was so excited as I thought it was a blue ring octopus (these don’t show their rings all the time either), cool enough but then, when it swam off it displayed this big wig, yeah it was really hairy and out in the open. I was making as much noise as I could to attract the others, I managed to track down just about all the divers to come and see it. There was only one lady who never saw it and I knew she’d want to see this more than anything. I signalled to Yann (another guide who works with me from time to time) to stay and keep an eye on it, then I swam round like a nutter searching for her, eventually I found her, took her to it and we all went nutty on the dive deck at we’d just experienced. Then very recently I went back to Komodo and dived another new spot and found another hairy species, this time a little more like the one Eric has shot here, it seemed to have much more colour than the others I had seen. I would say there are probably numerous species, like the Mimic octopus which simply a species long arm octopus.
I saw a promo video for an operator in PNG a while back. The narrator goes on about a hairy octopus he had seen and filmed and how they are only known on sites only known to the operator. While staying with the operator I asked if he could take us to the place where he sees the hairy octopus. As he’s a great straight up guy, he told me straight up that he had only saw it the once with this very lucky guy who thought it would be cool to use this as a marketing ploy!
This is such a cool animal and Eric is very lucky indeed to see one never mind get such a great shot of one! My couple of shots can be seen at here...
) I got the impression at Kimbe, PNG that they are found every so often at Restorf. So, keep an eye out if you're headed there in the future.
