Overview
- The peer-reviewed study, published November 5, 2026, filmed seven octopuses in custom acrylic boxes and used each animal’s eye-to-eye distance to set hole sizes as a proxy for the width of rigid cranial cartilage.
- Researchers found common octopuses executed a consistent three-step sequence when holes were wider than their eye-to-eye distance and used a four-step sequence when holes were narrower.
- Mayan octopuses behaved more cautiously and typically avoided the narrow holes, a difference the authors link to species biology or the sandy, rocky habitats where O. maya lives.
- Detailed maneuvers included probing with a front arm, threading multiple arms, anchoring with suckers, and then pushing and pulling the mantle and head through the opening.
- The team highlights potential soft-robotics applications but warns that the small sample size, two-species focus, and limited hole geometries mean further work is needed to generalize the findings.