By Eva Baron on April 24, 2025

Photo: Wednesday Davis / University of Auckland

“This ‘sharktopus’ was a mysterious find indeed.”

While aboard a University of Auckland vessel off the coast of Kawau Island, in New Zealand, Rochelle Constantine noticed something unusual clutching onto a mako shark’s head. There were several things the orange clump could’ve been; a mass, the marine ecologist thought, or perhaps a deep gash. Maybe it was even a buoy, or a tangled fishing net? She didn’t consider the possibility of it being a Maori octopus hitching a ride.

Her colleague Wednesday David, a technician, sent a drone to investigate from above, while another colleague, Esther Stuck, dangled a GoPro overboard to film the shark from below. The University of Auckland recently published this remarkable footage, showcasing what, at first glance, seems like a comical scene. The shark gracefully snakes through the water, with a large, metallic dorsal fin poking out from the waves. Upon closer inspection, the orange octopus becomes visible, its tentacles clinging onto the shark as its bulbous head bounces along the current.

“This ‘sharktopus’ was a mysterious find indeed,” Constantine writes in an article about the experience. “Octopus are mostly on the seabed while short-fin mako sharks don’t favor the deep.”

For The New York Times, she added, “It makes no sense that these two animals should be at the same place and time to encounter each other. We have no idea how they found each other.”

Though this mako shark clocked in at 10 feet long, the Maori octopus is equally hefty. The cephalopod can grow up to 6.5 feet and weigh around 26 pounds, rendering them the largest octopus in the Southern Hemisphere.

“You can see [the octopus] takes a fair amount of real estate on the shark’s head,” Constantine said. […]

A shortfin mako shark. (Photo: Mark Conlin/SWFSC Large Pelagics Program, Public domain)

Source: Watch an Octopus Hitch a Ride on a Shark in Footage by Scientists