During a night research dive off the coast of Haifa, at a depth of over 100 meters, we had an extraordinary encounter with a curious octopus that stayed with our ROV for an unusually long time. Typically, octopus encounters are brief – these sensitive animals tend to flee quickly from the noise and bright lights of the robot. But this time, curiosity seemed to override survival instinct, allowing us to capture some beautiful close-up footage.

Even more fascinating was realizing that the octopus was using the ROV’s light to hunt. In some moments of the video, you can see it quickly darting sideways, spreading its arms, and apparently catching prey attracted by the light.

It was truly thrilling to witness such a mysterious sea creature in action, hunting at night in the deep.