CAUGHT ON CAMERA: Octopus punches uncooperative fish

(CBS, KYMA/KECY) - Researchers studying fish and octopuses that cooperatively hunt have found that the latter in such groups seem keen to assert their dominance in an interesting way: By punching the fish.

The newly published study, led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, describes how octopuses can be found to collaborate with fish to hunt.

But octopuses were seen to punch the fish in what they said was a "partner control mechanism."

Footage from the research team shot in the Red Sea shows some of the octopus fisticuffs.