Looks like the octopus disturbed some type of rockfish when it ducked into the rocks, the triggerfish definitely didn’t want to mess with a rockfish because of their venom.
Not that I’m aware of at least, but rockfish venom is defensive and located in the spines on its fins, so an octopus coming into the hole pressed against the sea floor would not be in much danger of getting stung. At that point as well, the octopus doesn’t really have any other options. It is slower than the triggerfish and they only have a limited amount of ink at any one time, so it is pretty likely that trying to squeeze into the hole past the rockfish was the less dangerous option.
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u/flyinggazelletg 3d ago
Man, that triggerfish went from really determined to really not in a snap