Watch this octopus squeeze through a tiny hole
The octopus is the Houdini of the animal kingdom, able to squeeze its eight legs and head through pretty much any opening it can find. Just how adept at escaping are they? Check out this video of an octopus on a boat squeezing its way through a tiny slot to freedom:
Much like most of us put on jeans, the octopus squeezes its way into the hole one leg at a time. Unlike most of us putting on jeans (I hope), the octopus then squeezes its noggin through the hole as well, and finally plops into the ocean.
The video was originally posted in 2015 by a fisherman named Chance Miller who does guides of the Chiswell Islands in Alaska. The video was posted again this year by Country Living on July 17, and has already amassed more than 2 million views. While some of the nearly 2,000 people who commented on the story felt it was mean to just watch the octopus wriggle around, others noted that an octopus on a fishing vessel normally meets a much worse end.
Of course, great octopus escapes are nothing new. The New York Times ran a profile of Inky, an octopus in a New Zealand aquarium who, in 2016, decided he no longer wanted to be an octopus in a New Zealand aquarium. An octopus in Russia also made a valiant attempt at escape earlier this year, but was not as successful. This failed escape attempt was due to the fact that, despite having eight legs, octopuses are not great at the whole walking thing.
With a body made up mostly of soft tissue, scientists said octopuses can squeeze through pretty much any hole larger than their beaks, making them perhaps nature’s greatest escape artist.
Or perhaps the second-greatest. Because one man in the video compares the octopus escape to his wife trying to fit into her wedding dress, and something tells me that when she hears that comment, his hiding skills might even put an octopus to shame.