(Image: Ionian Dolphin Project)

In the Odyssey, Homer tells of huge herds of monk seals on the beaches of ancient Greece. But these days they are hardly ever seen – their total population is less than 500, making them the world’s most endangered seal.

So Joan Gonzalvo, of the Tethys Research Institute in Milan, Italy, was delighted to see a monk seal while on a dolphin survey in western Greece last week.

“We could hardly believe that what we had in front of us was a monk seal,” he says. “Then we saw it voraciously preying on an octopus just a few metres away from our boat.” From the estimated size of the animal, around 130 centimetres long, Gonzalvo says it was a pup or juvenile seal.


Gonzalvo says he was struck, while watching the seal happily eating near his boat, by the trusting nature that has long made it an easy target for hunters.

The area’s octopuses don’t seem to be having an easy ride either. Gonzalvo, who runs the Ionian Dolphin Project, has previously seen one stuck to the genitals of a dolphin.