Unwitting tourist holds deadly blue-ringed octopus on Australian beach

The tourist had no idea how dangerous the octopus was. Photo / u/azymaris, Reddit

An unwitting tourist has no idea how close they came to death after filming themselves playing around with a very dangerous creature on an Australian beach.

A tourist visiting Australia has unknowingly had a brush with death after filming themselves handling a very dangerous creature, news.com.au reports.

Footage uploaded to Reddit shows the unwitting tourist holding a deadly blue-ringed octopus in their hand.

One Reddit user claimed the Mandarin writing on the video says: "Such a beautiful octopus."

The video shows the person shaking the octopus to get it off after they were done filming it.

Luckily they put the octopus back in the water before it had a chance to sting them.

The blue-ringed octopus is recognised as one of the world's deadliest marine animals and carries enough venom to kill 26 adult humans within minutes.

Commenters were understandably horrified by the video.

"Do they even know how lucky they are to be alive after doing something that monumentally stupid?" one person asked.

"This is how tourists become statistics," another said.

The blue-ringed octopus is recognised as one of the world's deadliest marine animals and carries enough venom to kill 26 adult humans within minutes. Photo / Getty Images

One added: "I am usually pretty calm, but this actually made my heart race. WHAT THE HELL. It's like holding death in your hand!"

This isn't the first time someone has had a close encounter with a blue-ringed octopus this year.

Earlier this month a mother issued a public warning after her daughter picked up the deadly creature at a popular swimming spot near Cronulla Beach in Sydney.

Julie Tattam described the terrifying moment her daughter emerged from the water brandishing a shell with the deadly creature inside.

In a Facebook post, Ms Tattam said the 11-year-old had told her: "Look at this gorgeous octopus, I caught it in this shell."

"I ran down to look and it was a blue-ringed octopus! She had been carrying it in her hands! (Luckily with the shell to protect her)," she wrote.

Her 11-year-old daughter scooped up the octopus in a shell. Photo / Julie Tattam, Facebook

Ms Tattam said the octopus then crawled back into a nearby rock pool.

The mother and daughter had been snorkelling at Salmon Haul beach in Sydney's south, a spot popular with locals near Cronulla Beach.

"I was so worried (in fact I am still shaking with 'what ifs') so I googled them," she said, before listing some of the terrifying facts about the toxicity of the sea creature's venom.

"We were a good 15 (minute) walk from the car and then another 15-20 (minute) drive from the hospital," Ms Tattam wrote. "So scary!"