Bali tourist films herself playing with deadly blue-ringed octopus

An unwitting tourist has no idea how close they came to death when they filmed themselves playing with a very dangerous creature on a Bali holiday.

Just because something is cute doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous.

A woman holidaying in Bali filmed herself holding what she thought was an adorable octopus while exploring the beaches.

Fortunately, it wasn’t until after she put the animal down that she learned how dangerous the creature truly was.

On Monday, Kaylin Phillips posted the footage to her TikTok account, writing “Going to Bali and unknowingly holding one of the most dangerous animals.”

The video then continues to identify the animal as a blue-ringed octopus.

@kaylinmarie21

Called my dad crying 3 hours later in Bali🙃 #blueringoctopus#bali#uluwatu#fyp#imdumb#thanksjesuschrist#ShowerWithMoxie#EnvisionGreatness

♬ Oh No Oh No Oh No No No - Dubskie

In the footage, Ms Phillips playfully cuddles the animal in her hand, making sure to keep plenty of water on it, though she’s still lucky that the octopus didn’t bite her.

The blue-ringed octopus is considered one of the world’s deadliest marine animals. Its venomous bite contains a deadly neurotoxin that is capable of causing respiratory arrest in a human in just minutes.

Since the video was uploaded, it has been viewed over 5.7 million times.

Ms Phillips commented on the video, “I actually held two of them in the same day. I tried to feed them oranges for a solid 20 minutes.”

Kaylin picked up the creature before she knew how dangerous it was. Picture: kaylinmarie21

She was relieved to have survived the encounter. Picture: kaylinmarie21

She also wrote that after finding out the truth about the animal, she called her dad “crying”.

Several TikTokers wrote in to offer helpful advice, with one user summarising, “Advice from marine biology/zoology: Never ever pick up, touch or eat anything brightly coloured. Period, animal or plants.”

“The bright colour pattern is supposed to be the warning, do they not teach that in science anymore?” someone else said.

“I grew up in Australia – my heart is racing from just looking at this,” an Aussie TikTok user said.

“You’ve used up all your luck on that one,” another agreed.

A blue-ringed octopus can kill a person in minutes. Picture: Lyn Fraser

A similar incident happened in 2019 on a beach in Australia, where footage uploaded online showed a tourist unwittingly picking up a blue-ringed octopus and showing it off to the camera.

“Such a beautiful octopus,” the tourist said in the footage, before shaking it off them and returning it to the water before it stung them.

The same year, two British tourists horrified Australians when they filmed themselves playing with a blue-ringed octopus in Bundaberg.

In the video, which was posted to Facebook, one of the men holds out his arm while his mate dangles the octopus over him before putting the creature directly onto his skin.

The first man squeals and recoils as the octopus moves its tentacles over his skin before sticking his arm out a second time for another go.

The pair later told media they realised it was an octopus but didn’t realise what kind of octopus it was.

A version of this article originally appeared on Fox News and was reproduced with permission