Octopus Escapes New Zealand Aquarium, Finds Freedom

A New Zealand aquarium has been left confounded after a captive octopus named Inky made a successful attempt at freedom by climbing out of his tank, crawling across the floor, and squeezing through a drain out into the ocean. Staff at the National Aquarium of New Zealand in Napier, New Zealand were befuddled when one of two octopi in its possession mysteriously went missing until they found a watery trail of “octopus tracks” across the floor. “He managed to make his way to one of the drain holes that go back to the ocean and off he went—didn’t even leave us a message,” Rob Yarral, aquarium manager, said. Inky squeezed his football-sized body through a small gap left in his tank after routine maintenance to the pipe designed to circulate seawater back into the ocean (which staff inspected to ensure Inky wasn’t trapped) and is thought to now be “scuttling along the Pacific seafloor.”