points by Crunchified 1 day ago | 0 comments
How octopuses squeeze through too small gaps
Obligatory click-bait title comment...
The article describes how octopuses get through holes in one of two ways, one for larger holes and one for smaller holes.
Spoiler: An octopus cannot get through a gap that is too small.
[–] adrian_b 22 hours ago
[–] bookofjoe 1 day ago
I'm curious: Your comment implies that you find the title misleading.
What would you suggest instead?
[–] badlibrarian 1 day ago
"How octopuses squeeze through an opening far smaller than the body diameter" is boring, verbose, and a quote from the article.
[–] Crunchified 1 day ago
How about very small gaps instead of "too small gaps". Simple change to the title, but far more accurate and non-contradictory.
But would you still click on it?
True, but "too small" is considerably smaller than a human unfamiliar with octopuses would believe when seeing one, because, as mentioned in TFA, "too small" means "smaller than the distance between the eyes", which can be much smaller than the apparent diameter of the body.
Many years ago, the ability of octopuses to pass through very small gaps became widely known only after a large number of cases when octopuses had escaped from aquaria which were believed by their owners to be impossible to escape from.