Octopuses are extraordinary escape artists, capable of forcing their soft bodies through openings that appear far too small. Scientists wanted to understand exactly how they accomplish these remarkable squeezes, so they built an escape room designed specifically for octopuses.

The researchers worked with common octopuses, Octopus vulgaris, and Mayan octopuses, O. maya. Before testing the animals, the team measured the distance between the eyes of each participant.

Behind this area of the mantle is a central nervous system held within a casing. That casing is rigid, making it one of the few parts of an octopus that cannot be compressed, along with its chitin beak.

Those measurements gave the researchers a basis for designing escape holes in Perspex boxes. Openings slightly wider than the distance between an octopus’s eyes offered comfortable routes, while narrower gaps created more demanding squeezes.

Building the experimental setup was relatively straightforward, but persuading the animals to cooperate was another matter. First author Dr Xin Wenci, a Postdoctoral Associate at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Centre, described the unpredictability involved.

“From a personal perspective, I realized how challenging it is to work with animals,” Wenci told IFLScience. “I am an engineer and work with machines all the time, so I am used to them following the commands I give. With animals, things are much less predictable.”

With help from experienced biologists, the researchers coaxed the octopuses through the openings. The animals did more than simply demonstrate their flexibility, revealing a surprising variety in how they organized their movements.

When passing through larger openings, the octopuses generally followed a three step sequence. They first explored the gap, then moved some arms and the mantle through it, and finally brought the remaining arms across.

Tighter openings triggered a different, four step strategy. The octopuses probed the hole, moved some arms through, followed with the remaining arms, and only then squeezed the mantle through the narrow space.

The distinction challenged the team’s original expectations. “We had assumed there was a common strategy for this behavior: using their arms to push against the board and pull themselves through,” Wenci said.

“This change initially puzzled all of us. However, after thinking about it carefully, we felt that it made sense: the animals were still following the same general pattern, while the new strategy simply divided the process of pulling the body through into separate stages.”

Study author Michael Kuba of the University of Naples said the collaboration demonstrated how examining familiar animal behavior from another scientific perspective can reveal unexpected complexity. Squeezing through a crevice or cave might initially appear to be a minor biological question.

“But working with soft robotic engineers, you realise that there is so much more to how they manage to do this,” Kuba told IFLScience. “They have several steps of the movement, and they have specific postures and body parts they use to move through a hole.”

The findings may also inspire robots capable of navigating difficult environments. “We would like to see whether an octopus-like robot could overcome environmental constraints and enter spaces that are difficult to reach or would otherwise require a smaller body,” Wenci said.

“This could be especially useful for search-and-rescue and exploration robots.” The work offers engineers a detailed example of how a soft, flexible body can move through a constrained opening using coordinated stages rather than one continuous push.

For biologists, the research raises questions about how much an octopus understands about its body, actions, and position while coordinating movement. For robotics researchers, Kuba said, the animals provide inspiration by showing just how active and carefully coordinated the squeezing process is.

The collaboration allowed biology and engineering to approach the same behavior in different ways. The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, turns the octopus’s seemingly effortless escape act into a sequence of distinct and potentially useful movements.