⚡️🐙 NEW - British man unknowingly starts playing with the world's deadliest octopus while vacationing in the Philippines.

The man filmed himself handling a blue-ringed octopus, which can paralyze its victim by blocking nerve transmission.

According to the National Library of Medicine, the toxin from the octopus is about 1000x more deadly to humans than cyanide.

"At the beach today … A baby octopus captured by a gang of local beach kids," the man posted on IG.

It wasn't until the post started going viral that the man realized what he had held.

"Exploring the world alone, 11,000km from home, inevitably involves taking risks..." he said in a follow-up post.

"But nothing as extreme as my apparent brush with death yesterday, which was both inadvertent & to which I was entirely oblivious until I posted about it."

"Turns out that it was a blue-ringed octopus, instantly recognisable to Aussies & others as the world’s first / second / third most venomous animal!"

Wild.