A hamster Houdini has mesmerised social media after he was pictured shimmying up the corner of a wall to escape.

Six-month-old Kuro, a black and white golden hamster, was pictured by his Japanese owner Yuka Hirata as he attempted a daring evacuation of his cage.

“I suddenly (sensed something on) the wall, and it was like a picture,” Ms Hirata, 22, told the PA news agency.

“He usually escapes, but it’s his first time climbing the wall!”

Ms Hirata said if she had left Kuro in the position he would have continued to ascend, so she put him back in his enclosure.

The images of Kuro’s escapade have been shared hundreds of thousands of time on Twitter, where many users compared him to the famously flexible movie star Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Ms Hirata, from Japan’s Kanagawa prefecture, said she never expected the pictures to spread so widely.