A woman posing with an octopus on her face suffered a nasty surprise when the sea creature bit her on the chin with its venomous beak.
Jamie Bisceglia had met a fisherman who hooked an octopus in Washington on Aug. 2 and saw an opportunity for an unusual photo.
“Looking back, I probably made a big mistake,” Bisceglia said.
She put the small eight-limbed mollusc on her face and posed, but the octopus grabbed her with its suckers and burrowed its beak into her chin.
"It had barreled its beak into my chin and then let go a little bit and did it again,” she explained.
“It was a really intense pain when it went inside and it just bled, dripping blood for a long time."
According to a spokeswoman at Point Defiance Aquarium, the eight-limbed attacker could be a Pacific red octopus.
Bisceglia believes it was a smaller version of a giant Pacific octopus.
Both species have a powerful beak used to break and eat crabs, clams and mussels and their bite contains venom to immobilize their prey.
But Bisceglia, who owns South Sound Salmon Sisters, kept fishing for two more days before she finally went to hospital.
"And I'm still in pain. I'm on three different antibiotics,” she said.
“This can come and go, the swelling, for months they say."
The painful experience has taught Bisceglia a lesson in handling live animals.
"This was not a good idea. Hindsight looking back, I will never do it again," she said.
