“Right on the spot we were not sure about what exactly was hanging from the dolphin’s belly,” Gonzalvo wrote. “What was our surprise when we examined the photos and discovered that naughty octopus!”

“I have never seen anything like this,” Joan Gonzalvo of the Ionian Dolphin Project told New Scientist. “My hypothesis is that the dolphin might have attacked – tried to prey on the octopus – and somehow to avoid it the octopus just attached to the dolphin’s belly.”