Incredible Video Shows An Octopus Trying to Communicate in a Way We’ve Never Seen Before

The elusive nature of ocean creatures is never more surreal when experienced first-hand by diving into the deep waters. In the spring of 2024, the National Geographic Explorer, Alex Schnell (@alex.schnell), was exploring the waters of the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of northeastern Australia, to hunt for crabs. Instead, she stumbled upon an octopus named Scarlett. As she swam close to the otherworldly creature, it hesitated. But within a few moments, the octopus shed its fear and drifted near Schnell, offering a beautiful moment to the crew who were filming a three-part National Geographic series, "Secrets of the Octopus.”

The series was produced by filmmaker James Cameron and narrated by actor Paul Rudd. A clip from the series, which is since making rounds on the internet, shows the marine biologist, Schnell, getting up close to an octopus. At first, the octopus crawls away, probably frightened at the unusual company. But as their eyes clapped, something clicked in the octopus’ mind, for, it began to trust her. She named it Scarlett. “When she reached out her arms and put her suckers on my hand, it just felt like a life-changing moment,” Schnell said in the voiceover of an Instagram reel.

“One of the things that makes an octopus so amazing is that their brain is connected exactly to the muscles in their skin and their muscles are connected to about 20 million sacks of differently-colored pigments. The octopus can produce an endless array of patterns and colors,” the diver said, and that's true enough according to science. Scientists have even prophesized that octopuses would dominate planet Earth if humans go extinct. With blue blood pumping in their three hearts and an ability to regenerate lost limbs, octopuses are probably the most mysterious creatures crawling on the deep sea floors. It isn’t just their intelligent body design that makes them so alluring to animal researchers, but also their inextricable connectedness with humans.

ScienceDaily previously reported that the ancestor of octopuses and humans was the same primitive flatworm that trawled the sea floor approximately 750 million years ago. Interestingly, Schnell is no stranger to octopuses. She, in fact, has been interacting with these creatures, including cephalopods like octopuses, ever since she was a child. "Cephalopods were always a point of interest from a very young age," Schnell told Newsweek. "They're just so alien—they have three hearts that pump blue blood, no bones, and skin that can change color in an eye-blink. But within this really strange framework, we're seeing glimmers of intelligence that we might normally expect to see in, say, dolphins, chimpanzees, or elephants."

Previously, she also said to National Geographic, “When you look into a cuttlefish or octopus eye, you can see that there’s a being looking back at you.” Talking about her surreal interaction with Scarlett, Schnell said that it “just felt like magic.” "She let me get super close and I could see that as she was putting her arms underneath the coral rubble crabs would swim out and escape her grasp. So I just randomly started to point to where these crabs would go and she immediately responded," Schnell described to Newsweek.

Months later, a poet approached Schnell with a piece of poetry she wrote about this Scarlett episode. Schnell posted her poem titled "Ode to Scarlett" in an Instagram post along with the incredible clip. “Her words moved me to tears, taking me right back to that unforgettable moment,” she said.