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Octopuses show their friendly and ferocious sides in amazing images

Natasha Dickinson during the remarkable Giant Pacific Octopus encounter. ©2015 Jackie Hildering

Last weekend, a Giant Pacific Octopus got friendly with a scuba diver on the north coast of Vancouver Island.

Natasha Dickinson and her diving partner Jackie Hildering, a biologist and marine educator, was diving near Port Hardy on Sunday when an octopus loosely wrapped itself around Dickinson’s face.

"I headed over there and to my absolute amazement I saw that she had a giant Pacific octopus right over her face," said Hildering, who captured the encounter on camera.

Hildering posted the photos — and shared their story — on her blog, The Marine Detective.

“Natasha is an incredibly skilled and experienced diver with a deep respect for marine life. She was clearly not afraid, nor was the octopus,” she wrote.

"My whole reason for writing the blog and sharing the pictures was to dispel the idea that they’re somehow monstrous or kraken-like," she told CBC News.

Dickinson told CBC News that she put her hand over the regulator in her mouth as a precaution against accidental suffocation but was otherwise comfortable with the sea creature on her head.

Hindering added that, despite being vilified in popular culture, the octopus is an intelligent, inquisitive creature and only acts defensively when provoked.

“As it always goes, fear and mythology thrive where there is absence of knowledge,” she wrote on her blog.

“Any negative encounters between divers and Giant Pacific Octopuses that I am aware of, result from divers manhandling them ‘insisting’ on an encounter or involve individuals that are habituated to being fed by humans.”

“These sorts of exchanges are usually very respectful,” she told CBC News.

After a couple of minutes of pulling on Dickinson’s bungee cord, the octopus let go.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t been as good a week for crab-octopus interactions.

In Western Australia, a beach-goer recently captured an octopus jumping out of the water to kill a crab on video.

The octopus might not (usually) be a threat to humans, but this on-land attack will have us watching our step the next time we’re hanging out at the ocean.