He was a resident of the National Aquarium of New Zealand, but now Inky the octopus has escaped from his tank and is running around somewhere in the bay.
An inky octopus makes an amazing escape from an aquarium and swims back to the ocean.
An Octopus named Inky is said to have broken out of his tank, slithered across an aquarium floor, slid into the ocean through a small drain pipe, and then swam away.
People at New Zealand’s national aquarium were shocked to see this amazing thing happen at night. It happened after an employee left the lid on the octopus’ tank a little bit open.
Because Inky was in a glass enclosure, the staff thought he was taking advantage of the fact that it was clear. He then slid down the side and slithered across eight feet of floor to a drainpipe that goes into the ocean.
A boneless cephalopod would have had to squeeze his head through 160 feet of pipe that was less than 6 inches wide. Alix Harvey, an aquarist at the Marine Biological Association in England, told the New York Times that octopuses are great at getting out of places. In the wild, they are programmed to hunt for food at night and move around at night. They have a complex brain, good eyesight, and research shows that they can learn and make mental maps, too. Because octopuses have soft bodies, they can fit into very small places. They have been filmed getting through gaps the size of coins.
