By Tim Binnall
A tourist visiting Australia from China unknowingly tempted fate and cheated death when they picked up a highly poisonous creature and marveled at its appearance. In a video which was reportedly first posted on Chinese social media and then noticed by an aghast Australian, an individual named Alan holds a rather diminutive sea animal in the palm of their hand before putting it back in the water. Accompanying the video was the caption "such a beautiful octopus."
While Alan's observation was indeed correct and the creature was quite breathtaking, his decision to pick it up has been met with sheer astonishment from Australians who have seen the video. That's because the tourist had unwittingly held a blue-ringed octopus which just so happens to be one of the world's deadliest sea creatures. The unsettling denizen of the deep is known to possess a venom so potent that it can kill a human in mere minutes.
The octopus is so widely feared by Australians that one resident of the country who saw the video confessed that just watching the footage set their heart racing and declared that Alan's antics were akin to "holding death in your hand." To that end, another viewer astutely mused that "this is how tourists become statistics." Fortunately for Alan's sake, he managed to brush the octopus of off his hand without agitating the creature enough to cause it to sting him, otherwise his 'fun' social media post would have wound up a PSA about respecting native wildlife while visiting Australia.