Have You Seen This? Filipino fisherman engages in epic battle with octopus

PALAWAN, Philippines — I don't go fishing much, and a video making the rounds of a man in the Philippines wrestling with a small octopus wrapped around his face probably won't spur me to get out a rod and head to the local lake anytime soon.

In the end, the critter and the man ended up alright, but they engaged in an epic battle before it was all over. It reminded me of an incident years ago when I went fishing with a friend and he caught an eel of some sort, which wrapped itself around his arm as he struggled, successfully, to disengage it, ultimately tossing it into the sea.

In the incident in the waters off Palowan, Philippines, a man, identified as Jesser Cervantes, inadvertently pulled the tentacled creature from the sea as he was fishing. The octopus subsequently wrapped itself around Cervantes' face and head, forcing the man to fight hard to get it off, video of the incident shows. He'd pry one tentacle loose, reach for another, then the creature would reattach the recently loosened tentacle with its powerful suckers.

"The octopus I caught was very hard to handle. It almost ripped my face," Cervantes said, according to a report of the incident by the Free Press Journal, an online news outlet based in Mumbai, India. The encounter happened July 10, according to the publication, but has only been making the rounds of social media since last week.

Ultimately, Cervantes grabbed a cut bamboo shaft he had within arm's reach and batted the octopus, ultimately pulling it off and tossing it into the sea.

"The incident highlights how difficult it can be to handle an octopus, even when the animal is relatively small. Their flexible bodies and strong arms allow them to maneuver rapidly and maintain a powerful grip," reads the Free Press Journal report.

Commenters to the video noted that the incident — though probably rare — gives them one more sort of thing to fear. "New nightmare unlocked," wrote one.