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adaptive responses greatly improve the competitive capacities of bacteria in diverseenvironments. here, we investigate whether bacteria can adapt to a microenvironment withdistinctive softness by examining the type-iv pili (tfp)-mediated motility of pseudomonasaeruginosa cells on brush-like surfaces that are grafted with a layer of thermally sensitivepolymer chains, where the softness of the brush-layer is tunable by applying a smalltemperature change (from 30 to 37 c). we report that p. aeruginosa cells slingshot more onsoft surfaces at a shear-thinning condition, which greatly facilitates their surface crawling bymeans of reducing energy dissipation. this adaptive response suggests that p. aeruginosa cellsmay be able to sense the local viscoelasticity and then deploy tfp to adapt to their physicalsurroundings.