Octopuses are slithering out of the water onto beaches in Wales, and locals say they've 'never seen anything like it' (2024)

• Curled Octopuses are washing up on the beaches in Wales.
• Alocal tour group spotted them out late Friday night, and guides saidthey'd never seen anything like this before.
• Octopuses can survive outside the water for about 20-30 minutes,and some aren't making it back into the water in time.

Octopuses in Wales are slitheringout ofthe water for someevening shenanigans.

The gooey, bulbouscreatures, which are about the size of a human hand,were spotted crawling ashore over the weekend. Estimates suggest between 20 and 25of themwere seen out of the water on Friday night.

In a video posted on Facebook Saturday, the team at SeaMor Wildlife Tours in the town of New Quay, Wales announced their late-night sighting:

"Never seen anything like it before," Brett Stones, owner of the SeaMor tour company, told Business Insider.

This 'Curled Octopus,' also called a Horned Octopus, is nativeto oceans from Norway down to the Mediterranean, and is fairly common inthe British Isles.Adults weigh between 1 and 2.5 pounds and can live up to five years.

Like fish, octopuses need water to survive, and take in oxygen through their gills. But marine biologist Ken HalanychtoldVanity Fair that octopuses can survive foraround 20-30 minutes outside the water.

It's not unheard of for octopuses to comeout of thesea — cephalopods experts say the nocturnal, eight-legged creatures have been known toroam the shores at night in search of food.

"Many octopus species emerge to hunt in the pools of water left behind by the receding tide" octopus expert Julian Finn told Scientific Americanin 2011, when another octopus was spotted coming ashore in California.However, nobody knows why these octopuses have emerged in Wales.

Sadly, it seems not all the octopusesleaving the waters of St George's Channel are making it back. On their Facebook page,SeaMor Wildlife Tourswrote on Saturday that they spotted "quite a few dead ones on the beach this morning."