Tourists Caught Eating Rare Sea Creatures
It used to be the case that a tourist felt adventurous if he or she ate the spicy sauce at a local restaurant, but today's travelers are made of sterner stuff. Some of them are ready to kill and eat any random creatures they come across, which is not good news for some rare fauna.
According to The Telegraph, an American tourist was horrified to discover that the octopus he'd killed and eaten on a recent trip to Greece was actually a very rare six-legged variety known as a "hexapus," and it was only the second ever to have been found.
Labros Hydras was snorkeling with his 10-year-old daughter and six-year-old son when they spotted the six-legged octopus rolling along, minding its own business. Excited by the prospect of the ultimate locavore lunch, Hydras caught the creature and he and his family posed for photos with it before taking turns beating it to death on some rocks.
A proud Hydras carried his catch to a nearby restaurant, but the chef declined to prepare the octopus for him. Undeterred, Hydras fried up the octopus himself and he and his family ate it with a slice of lemon and a tomato.
Only later did Hydras discover that he had eaten the second six-legged octopus ever discovered.
"It tasted just like a normal octopus but now I feel really bad," Hydras said. Biologists say Hydras' six-legged octopus was probably a regular kind of octopus with an abnormality in early development that caused it to grow only six legs.
This has not been a good summer for rare fauna and tourists, as according to the South China Morning Post, a group of Chinese tourists came under fire this week after posting photos online of themselves hunting and eating giant clams and other endangered creatures in the Paracel Islands.
"Giant clams are best when served raw, they taste good with mustard and soy sauce," one of the tourists posted under a photo of their now slightly more endangered dinner. "Most giant clams we picked weighed at least four kilograms."
Scuba diving in the area is allowed, but visitors are not supposed to touch or disturb any wildlife.