Boy finds rare Lego octopus on the Cornish coast

Football, gaming, music - these are popular hobbies among teenagers. But 13-year-old Liutauras Cemolonskas from the UK is a little out of the ordinary: he goes beachcombing in his spare time. This means he searches for things washed up on the beach, preferably Lego toys.

His latest find has now made the teenager famous beyond the country's borders: he found a Lego octopus that was lost 27 years ago in the municipality of Marazion on the western tip of England. A total of 4,200 of these small octopuses were on the container ship "Tokyo Express" in 1997 when it was hit by a monster wave. As a result, 62 containers fell into the sea, one of which contained around five million Lego parts, including 352,000 pairs of Lego diving fins and 97,500 Lego oxygen cylinders.

A long search

According to the news, Liutauras Cemolonskas has been searching for missing Lego parts on the beach for years. He has already found a total of 800 pieces. "We've been looking for this octopus for two years," his father Vytautas Cemolonskas (36) is quoted as saying. Next, the boy wants to find one of 33,941 Lego dragons that fell into the sea.

Especially curious: Shortly after the 13-year-old found the octopus, another boy found another specimen. Justin Goode was walking his dog on a beach around 17 kilometres from where the first one was found when he discovered the octopus. Tracey Williams also reports on rare Lego finds on her Instagram channel "Lego Lost At Sea". The expert, who has also written a book, describes the boys' find as the "holy grail of this shipping container".