Author Topic: The Shawshank Redemption, cephalopod version  (Read 1434 times)

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The Shawshank Redemption, cephalopod version
« on: April 14, 2016, 10:51:54 AM »
Octopus slips out of aquarium tank, crawls across floor, escapes down pipe to ocean

By Karin Brulliard April 13 at 6:00 AM 



Inky the octopus, the escapee from New Zealand’s National Aquarium. (Courtesy of the National Aquarium of New Zealand)


Inky the octopus didn’t even try to cover his tracks.

By the time the staff at New Zealand’s National Aquarium noticed that he was missing, telltale suction cup prints were the main clue to an easily solved mystery.

Inky had said see ya to his tank-mate, slipped through a gap left by maintenance workers at the top of his enclosure and, as evidenced by the tracks, made his way across the floor to a six-inch-wide drain. He squeezed his football-sized body in — octopuses are very malleable, aquarium manager Rob Yarrall told the New Zealand website Stuff — and made a break for the Pacific.

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Re: The Shawshank Redemption, cephalopod version
« Reply #1 on: April 14, 2016, 10:53:28 AM »
“He managed to make his way to one of the drain holes that go back to the ocean. And off he went,” Yarrall told Radio New Zealand. “And he didn’t even leave us a message.”

The cephalopod version of “Shawshank Redemption” took place three months ago, but it only became public Tuesday. Inky, who already had some local renown in the coastal city of Napier, quickly became a global celebrity cheered on by strangers.

Inky had resided at the aquarium since 2014, when he was taken in after being caught in a crayfish pot, his body scarred and his arms injured. The octopus’s name was chosen from nominations submitted to a contest run by the Napier City Council.

Kerry Hewitt, the aquarium’s curator of exhibits, said at the time that Inky was “getting used to being at the aquarium” but added that staff would “have to keep Inky amused or he will get bored.”

Guess that happened.

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Re: The Shawshank Redemption, cephalopod version
« Reply #2 on: April 14, 2016, 10:54:00 AM »
This isn’t the first time a captive octopus decided to take matters into its own hands — er, tentacles. In 2009, after a two-spotted octopus at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium in California took apart a water recycling valve, directed a tube to shoot water out of the tank for 10 hours and caused a massive flood, Scientific American asked octopus expert Jennifer Mather about the animals’ intelligence and previous such hijinks at aquariums.

“They are very strong, and it is practically impossible to keep an octopus in a tank unless you are very lucky. … Octopuses simply take things apart,” Mather said. “I recall reading about someone who had built a robot submarine to putter around in a large aquarium tank. The octopus got a hold of it and took it apart piece by piece. There’s a famous story from the Brighton Aquarium in England 100 years ago that an octopus there got out of its tank at night when no one was watching, went to the tank next door and ate one of the lumpfish and went back to his own tank and was sitting there the next morning.”

Yarrall said the aquarium has no plans to replace Inky, but it does intend to better secure the tank where now just one octopus remains.

“They are always exploring and they are great escape artists,” Yarrall said, according to Hawke’s Bay Today. “We’ll be watching the other one.”

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Re: The Shawshank Redemption, cephalopod version
« Reply #4 on: April 15, 2016, 08:56:28 PM »
Inky the octopus's great escape isn't really all that surprising — or unusual
PRI's The World
April 13, 2016 · 5:00 PM EDT
By Carolyn Beeler


A well-loved octopus named Inky escaped recently from the National Aquarium in New Zealand.

Aquarium manager Rob Yarrall says the lid to the octopus’ tank was left slightly ajar after maintenance one night. 

"He found this rather tempting, climbed out,” Yarrall says, “and he managed to make his way to one of the drain holes that go back to the ocean, and off he went, and didn't even leave us a message, just off and went!"

The escape happened earlier this year, and hit the New Zealand national press Tuesday.

"Octopuses are fabulous escape artists, and it's absolutely not surprising that he saw an opportunity to explore and he took it,” said Sy Montgomery, author of "The Soul of an Octopus."

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Re: The Shawshank Redemption, cephalopod version
« Reply #5 on: April 15, 2016, 08:57:45 PM »
According to Montgomery, octopus escapes from aquariums are common.

"They can squeeze through the tiniest spaces and easily, a 100-pound octopus can squeeze through an opening the size of an orange,” Montgomery said.

The drain pipe in the New Zealand aquarium was about 6 inches wide.

Octopuses can typically squeeze through an opening as small as their mouths, or beaks, as they are the only hard part of their body.

"Their muscles are less like our biceps than our tongues,” Montgomery said, “so they can flow in a way that, even if our muscles were detached from our bones, our muscles could not do."

A slime covering Inky's skin would have prevented it from drying out as he oozed from his tank to the drain that led to his freedom. And the suckers on his tentacles, which octopuses can use to taste food, would have also helped propel him across the floor.

"Each sucker can lift an enormous amount of weight,” Montgomery said.

According to Montgomery, a 3-inch-diameter sucker on a giant Pacific octopus can lift 30 pounds.

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Re: The Shawshank Redemption, cephalopod version
« Reply #6 on: April 15, 2016, 08:58:14 PM »
Montgomery says octopuses get out of aquariums so frequently not because of their Houdini-like escape skills, nor because they’re lonely — they’re solitary creatures — but because they are generally super curious.

"It doesn't mean that Inky was unhappy where he was,” Montgomery said. “Astronauts don’t go into outer space because they don't like Earth, they just want to see what else is out there."

Aquarium manager Yarrall says Inky was brought to the aquarium from a nearby reef just a few years ago, so it’s likely he'll be able to survive in the wild.

And while he didn't leave a note, there was a different telltale sign that he did, indeed, escape and wasn't stolen: a trail of water from his tank to that drainpipe of freedom.

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