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New Zealand: Octopus escapes from aquarium
http://www.greensboro.com/news/octopus-slips-out-of-aquarium-tank-crawls-across-floor-escapes/article_eab911ad-53e8-5382-98b3-d50f1a23a98d.htmlsnip
nky 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.
snip
4 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
They are just too smart to keep locked up!
From your link in the OP:
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."
"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."
work at New England Aquarium, and he told me that some years ago, they had a mystery on their hands. They kept finding lobster shells in the seal enclosure and couldn't understand how the seals were getting into the lobster tank. So they set up a camera and saw that octopuses had figured out how to get out of their tank and into the lobster tank without leaving any evidence, even putting the lids back on. The octopuses would eat a lobster or two and then toss the shells in with the seals. 
Man, those guys are scary smart!!
