An octopus attacking a blue swimmer crab over bait, a squid changing colours as it tries to steal the lot; these are some of the scenes being captured off Adelaide's beaches to create an unlikely social media hit.
Kayak fisher Andy Burnell has been attaching a camera to bait that he places on the ocean floor, between 500 metres and a kilometre off Henley Beach.
"What amazed me was the grid pattern the squid displays as it first comes in.
"It's got perfect squares all over it and then it turns a dark colour and starts going for the bait — it's right in front of the camera as the crab's trying to pincer it."
The "hectic" nature of blue swimmer crabs too has been startling, in particular their aggressive nature as they attack the camera and jostle for bait, having been swept into a frenzy.
"Once they smell the bait in the water, they just come flying in," Mr Burnell said.
"It's all go."
A marine curiosity
Mr Burnell, who has a background in marine biology, said he had the idea to submerge a camera with his crab bait several years ago because he was curious about what was "going on while I'm fishing".
He originally posted the footage to his personal social media page, but a video shared to a public page resulted in thousands of views.
"It's entertaining, I think, especially for people like crab fishers, because a lot of people fish but don't spend time underwater," Mr Burnell said.
He subsequently set up a public page dubbed Crab.e.cam where, after a month, his videos are already receiving tens of thousands of views, including more than 50,000 for a video entitled Squid Games.
"I find a lot of people are just stoked to see stuff they wouldn't normally see along here," Mr Burnell said.
"If that makes people think about the marine environment, then I'm happy about it."
An 'edgy' existence
Asked if the close contact footage had affected his taste for blue swimmer crabs, Mr Burnell, who is also a scuba and free diver, said it had not.
"The more you know about things and the more you see them, the less likely you want to eat them because you say, 'Oh, their lives are a lot more complicated than you think, and they've got more abilities', or for whatever reason," he said.
"And the other thing is, if you get to watch some of these things, all these creatures live on the edge every day.
"They turn their eye for one minute and that's it, they're gone; a predator's got them, and that's just the way it is."
