Rare sighting of blanket octopus in Great Barrier Reef

Only a handful of people have spotted the dazzling blanket octopus in the wild, making it one of the rarest sights in the marine world. The vibrantly coloured marine mollusc was spotted earlier this month by reef guide and marine biologist Jacinta Shackleton, off the coast of Lady Elliot Island in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. “I was so excited I was finding it difficult to hold my breath to dive down and video it,” she said. Blanket octopuses are extremely rare. The first sighting of a live male was made 21 years ago just north of the Great Barrier Reef in the Ribbon Reefs by Dr Julian Finn, a senior curator of marine invertebrates at Museums Victoria, and his colleagues.