Ask Trev! The section where I answer the problems that perplex the people.  This question comes to me from Maureen in Murrawee:

Maureen writes “Dear Big Angry Trev, can you tell me which is the most evil animal in the world?“

Well Maureen, the cliché answer to that is man. However this answer is wrong, dead wrong.  Animals in themselves aren’t inherently good’ or ‘inherently evil’ in the way humans understand these abstract concepts, they just ‘are’.  That is, bar one…

No ladies and gentlemen I am not talking about man-eating sharks, I am not talking about man-eating lions.  I’m not even talking about mosquitoes (even though they would win for being both the most deadly and the most annoying).  The most evil animal on the planet is…. the OCTOPUS!

That’s right!  Evil, slimy, 8-legged a-holes spawned from the fiery pits of Satan’s backside!  Gross, disgusting, big eyed bastards with a bag of guts for a head and a penchant for ripping the masks off divers so they can use their beak-like jaws to gnaw on the flesh beneath! I’m surprised The Wiggles let one hang out with them – sends a really bad message to children about who to trust.

Here are a few facts about your Octopus:

*Those aren’t suction cups!  Each one of those little round protuberances that looks like the bottom of an albino plunger actually sticks to you because it is full of hundreds to curved barbs!  The barbs don’t go straight in no, they go into the flesh then curve off so if you manage to pull one off your arm it’s gonna take a hunk of flesh with it!

*They change colour!  That’s a creature waiting to ambush you if ever I’ve heard of one!  Not content to engage in open and honorable fisticuffs (which you think it would do considering it’s multiple arms) it will blend into the background or even worse, the ocean floor and then when you stand near it WHAM!  You are dealing with a near invisible assassin taking your foot off at the ankle!

*They are venomous – every single type – and at least one breed is capable of killing a human!  And those beak-jaws I mentioned?  Full of venomous saliva!  Let me repeat that – VENOMOUS SALIVA!  I don’t care what definition you go by – that’s freakin evil!

*They squirt black ink into your face that not only obscures your vision but dulls your sense of smell, so you can’t see or smell them as they come in for the kill.

*3 hearts.  Not one like a law-abiding creature, not two like a Time Lord, but three!  That means if you meet a vampire octopus you better have at least 3 stakes handy and be adept at fighting undead cephalopods in an underwater battle scenario.

If that isn’t enough evidence for you Marueen, let me share a story with you that is both true and well documented.

In a science lab there were two big aquariums, one on either side of the room.  One was full of crabs, the other contained an octopus.  The crabs were being bred in the tank as a source of food for the scientists to feed the octopus and such were their numbers and environment that they could do so quite happily and readily.

Now it got to the point that each morning the scientists were coming in and finding that there were always several less crabs then there should have been and scraps of crab carapace were in the tank.  They could not figure out what was happening as this was a daily occurrence.  So they set up a night vision camera before they closed up the lab that evening and left.

What they saw captured on film will fill you horror and dismay!

The octopus, not content with the sacrifices being fed to it each day had hatched a plan.  Every day it sat there, eyeing its prey across the room with evil and malicious intent.  As soon as the lights went out of an evening the octopus would use its four pairs of arms to pull itself up out of its tank, slither across the floor, climb the table, get into the crabs tank and then kill and devour many of their number, not even the children were safe!

The ultra sneaky bit was it didn’t stay there!  After sating its voracious appetite it would then climb back out, slither back across the room and back into its own tank.  That way in the morning when the scientists came in it could just sit there, shrug it’s 8 shoulders and put on a ‘Nothing to do with me’ expression.

Imagine the life of these poor crabs!  Sitting there in their tank while this bastard eyed them off all day, knowing that when night fell it would be upon them to kill and maim and devour!  You think you have stress ulcers?  You have nothing on what these poor crabs were going through!

And that Marueen, is why Octopus are the most evil of animals.  Thank you for your question.