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If you didn't know any better, you would think the cast of The Odyssey risked life and limb to bring Homer's epic to life on the big screen. Waves crash around its actors, armor is lugged up hilltops, and – for one final sting in the tail – they were some ferocious cameos during the movie's feted Cyclops sequence.

For Himesh Patel, who plays Odysseus' second-in-command Eurylochus, that sense of peril only enhanced his performance – aided by the trust of director Christopher Nolan.

"I mean it adds a sort of visceral quality to it, which you see on screen that you don't really see that often," Patel recounts to GamesRadar+. "He's a rare filmmaker, in that he trusts we have a certain level of common sense to keep ourselves safe, but also that he's got the best stunt teams around, the best marine teams around, that kept us safe and kept us from ever being in any real danger."

Patel adds, "That allows him to capture that sort of visceral reality of what it was like to be on the boat or be in the cave, that sort of thing. And then you have things like that swarm of bees outside the Cyclops cave, that was just real."

Ah, yes, the bees . While your eyes may have been focused on Bill Irwin's lumbering, titanic Cyclops as Odysseus and his men bid to escape the cave it calls home, you may have noticed the low buzz of bees that soundtrack much of their entry into the precarious situation.

Far from being something added in post-production, their presence was something that occurred naturally in a moment of serendipity that wouldn't look out of place in one of the Greek myths' many godly interjections.

"When we broke for lunch and they were like, 'Just wait five minutes.' The sound team captured the sound of the bees. Sometimes you have these beautiful accidents."

Patel also reveals that the set-piece was filmed in Nestor's Cave in Greece, otherwise known as the "birthplace of Zeus."

On his arrival to 'set', Patel was taken aback by how the setting of perhaps the audience's most-anticipated moments was transformed for The Odyssey.

"The first day we got there, we basically turned it into a soundstage," Patel recalls. "They'd found a tiny gap at the top where they could run some cables in, and basically harness a rig of lighting. It was just kind of amazing to be going there and reminding ourselves that we're in an actual cave, we look outside and there's actually the Mediterranean around us."

The Odyssey opens in cinemas on July 17.

For more, check out more of 2026's big movie release dates and our beginner's guide to The Odyssey . Then relive some of Nolan's classics with our ranking of the best Christopher Nolan movies .

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Animals come in a wide range of shapes and sizes, from spindly stick insects to blubbery whales. Round animals are harder to come by, but they're more common in the ocean than on land. So what is the roundest animal, and why are round animals uncommon?

At a glance, round animals might not seem that out of place on land. After all, small mammals like rabbits and pikas often look a bit spherical when their fur is puffed out and they're sitting. But Chris Law , an evolutionary biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said this shape is mostly an illusion.

"They're physically not as round as they appear to be," he told Live Science.

A sphere has the lowest surface-area-to-volume ratio of any shape, which is ideal for heat conservation. Law said the ability to curl or scrunch into a sphere can be essential to the survival of small animals, which lose heat more quickly than larger animals do .

Some small and furry mammals like the cotton-tail rabbit, Ezo flying squirrel and northern pika make look spherical when they're scrunched up and sitting down, but in reality they're not as physically round as they appear to be. (Image credit: Chris Rogers/Satoru S/feathercollector via Getty Images) Rolling into a circle can also offer protection. To safeguard their vital organs, animals like armadillos and hedgehogs roll into balls when threatened, leaving only their armor or spikes exposed to predators. But when you look at the skeletons of these supposedly round critters and their shape when they're not scrunched up, they aren't round at all, Law said.

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In fact, there are several reasons why round creatures are rarely found on land. Being perfectly round all the time would make it difficult to fit into small spaces, which is a key survival technique for avoiding predators, he added, and with the effects of gravity , having a lot of unsupported round mass puts strain on an animal's body. Overly round mammals, like obese cats and dogs, often suffer joint issues and other health problems.

"As a round animal, you're probably going to lose mobility, and you're going to be picked off by predators pretty easily," Law told Live Science.

There are exceptions, however. For example, beetles are small enough not to be affected as much by gravity and can fit into nooks and crannies without much wiggling. Their round shape coupled with their hard carapace makes them more difficult for predators to eat. And rain frogs puff up into a round shape to keep predators from removing them from their hiding spots.

If we're counting animals that are only round sometimes, then pill bugs (also known as rolly pollies) might take first place for the roundest land animal. But if not, rain frogs, and beetles like ladybugs, are the top contenders for the roundest land animal. But even these animals aren't perfectly round; ladybugs have flat bottoms to make it easier to move around, and rain frogs are less spherical when not puffed up.

Round sea animals

Being round at sea is a little more feasible than it is on land. In fact, sometimes, it's critical to survival.

Karly E. Cohen , a biomechanist at Friday Harbor Labs in Washington, studies lumpsuckers , a type of fish she describes as "quite round." These bulbous fish have suction cups made of enamel on their stomachs, which they use to latch on to surfaces at the bottom of the ocean. Lumpsuckers have armor, also made of enamel, covering their round shape. According to Cohen, lumpsuckers' roundness plays a huge part in keeping them attached to the seafloor or other surface. The curve of their bodies, coupled with the tooth armor, modifies the drag around the animal, creating a force that pushes them down rather than shooting them into the water column.

A lumpsucker sits on a rock. These animals use their enamel armor and their round shape to stay anchored to the ocean floor. (Image credit: MWCPhoto via Getty Images) Although gravity still works underwater, buoyancy helps push objects up , meaning the effects of gravity do not feel as strong at sea as they do on land. According to Cohen, lumpsuckers can get around just fine, if a bit more slowly than their more streamlined neighbors. And like pufferfish and porcupine fish, lumpsuckers' round shape and uninviting exterior make them tough to swallow ‪—‬ literally.

"There's no real good way to eat an apple whole; you have to take a bite," Cohen told Live Science. "And then this thing is armored, so it's very hard to take a bite."

All about symmetry

Despite their spherical shape, lumpsuckers don't quite win the award for the roundest animal. Lumpsuckers, like most animals, have bilateral symmetry, which means they are divided into two symmetrical sides across one plane of symmetry. But there are animals that have radial symmetry, which means they are symmetrically arranged in a circle around a central point with multiple planes of symmetry.

Echinoderms ‪—‬ which include sea stars, sea urchins and sand dollars ‪—‬ have pentaradial symmetry, which means they have five planes of symmetry arranged around a central point. According to Laurent Formery , a developmental biologist at the Oceanological Observatory of Banyuls-sur-Mer in France who studies echinoderms, scientists aren't entirely sure of the benefits of pentaradial symmetry or why echinoderms are the only modern animals that have it.

However, Formery thinks being divided into five sections instead of two may give echinoderms better sensory perception than bilaterally symmetrical animals. Echinoderms have decentralized nervous systems , meaning that instead of a brain, they have a series of neurons distributed evenly across their body, and photoreceptors all over their skin.

"They are kind of like a big crawling eye and brain, so they are receiving information from everywhere," he told Live Science. "They have a completely different way, that is difficult for us to imagine, of interacting with their environment."

An urchin in the genus Histocidaris . Underneath their spines, sea urchins are almost perfectly spherical. (Image credit: Volgi archive via Alamy) Because of this unique organization, radially symmetrical animals can sense predators from any direction . They can also easily switch which segment of their body is in the lead, making it easier for them to change directions to capture prey.

Discounting their spikes, certain species of sea urchin are almost perfectly spherical. Like lumpsuckers, sea urchins' spherical shape, coupled with their spines, makes them difficult meals for predators, Formery said. Sponges lack any symmetry, so they can develop all sorts of body shapes. One species, called the death ball sponge , looks like a Sputnik lamp, with many hook-covered spheres attached to its spindly "arms."'

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Under the sea, urchins in the genus Histocidaris , like Histocidaris purpurata and Histocidaris formosa , are the closest to perfect spheres, making them the top candidate for roundest animal.

Although roundness might be uncommon in the animal kingdom, Cohen said it's fascinating to study these animals and the reasons for their adaptations.

"As somebody that's interested in the tools and ways organisms work in their environments," she said, "they're a real treasure trove of evolution."

What do you know about the animal kingdom? Test your knowledge with our animal quiz!

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Copenhagen-based Triton Depth, founded in 2025 by three DTU engineering students, has raised €1 million in pre-seed funding

It aims to address one of the EU's most underserved security concerns: the seabed, as Baltic cable sabotage, shadow-fleet activity, and underwater drone warfare are increasingly growing concerns

Triton Depth intends to build a scalable network of passive acoustic sensors it calls 'Triton Nodes' to address the issue, leveraging AI to identify vessels and objects in real time

A three-man Danish company founded by students is venturing into a somewhat interesting industry for an EU-based startup: underwater defense.

Triton Depth has received €1 million in pre-seed funding from investors including London-based The Creator Fund and Denmark's state-owned Export and Investment Fund (EIFO), with aims to focus on acoustics to answer what is arguably Europe's biggest security threat in the days to come: drone-based naval warfare and sabotage.

With growing concerns about the vulnerability of the European Union, and by extension, Denmark, to a variety of sea-borne threats, EIFO's investment in Triton Depth might be more than just a value play, but a hallmark of a realization that it needs to tend to its own defense needs even as NATO continues to meander, with the US proving to be a volatile partner of late, to say the least.

Using affordable dual-use acoustic technology as the first line of defense

Triton Depth's approach is appealing for a domestic defense industry that does not share the budgets that larger naval players such as the US, Russia, or China possess: it is simple, yet elegant in its premise, and even partial wins when it comes to its claims would go a long way to safeguard Denmark and the EU's regional interests.

Triton Depth's approach centers around the use and deployment of its 'Triton Nodes', a scalable cluster of low-maintenance passive acoustic sensors that measure sound underwater before feeding information back to an AI model that assesses and classifies signatures it detects in real time.

The company intends to market its product line as a dual-use technology play, with CEO and Co-Founder Carl Borg stating that they aim to build "the intelligence layer for the ocean" for both civilian and defense use cases.

The focus on defense stems from Denmark's own vulnerabilities in the Baltic Sea, which has previously suffered significant economic damage from sabotage, including the destruction of Nord Stream 1 and 2.

With an increasing share of its critical infrastructure, including power interconnectors, data cables, and offshore wind, lying underwater, it could be argued that EIFO's investment is the Danish state safeguarding its own maritime security and intelligence interests by investing in an intelligent tripwire for the future.

Other European governments are also actively seeking scalable, affordable ways to monitor coastal and subsea infrastructure, even as Nordic defense budgets continue to rise, with Triton Depth among many defense infrastructure companies poised to benefit from a renewed focus on maritime security in the region, even as acoustics are seen as a reliable metric to monitor for a variety of infrastructure plays .