Some chemical in octopus skin acts as a repellent to the little suction cups on the arms, a surprise finding shows. Without it, the eight-armed creature would tie itself in knots.

This provides each arm with a degree of autonomy, allowing an octopus to use some arms to perform one task while also carrying out another, entirely different activity with other arms.

Octopus Arms Are Controlled by a Nervous System That's Like No Other. Michelle Starr. Wed, January 15, 2025 at 10:00 AM UTC. 4 min read. Octopuses tend to keep secrets, but we've just learnt how ...

The eldritch, alien movements of octopus arms have captivated people for generations. These underwater cephalopods don't have just one brain but nine, with each of their arms able to act semi ...

Because each arm has its own ganglion, or cluster of neurons, each arm can act independently of the octopus’s central brain and other arms. The neurons at the base of each arm connect to suckers ...

Biologists investigated whether octopuses preferred certain arms over others when hunting, rather than using each arm equally. No matter what type of prey came by, each octopus attacked using the ...

Now, in a new study published on November 28 in Current Biology, Hale and her colleagues have described something new and totally unexpected about the octopus nervous system: a structure by which the ...

Where octopus eyes cannot see, their arms can go to identify prey and make sense of their surroundings. Scientists knew that those eight arms (not tentacles) sense whether their eggs are healthy ...

Squid, cuttlefish and octopuses, like this California two-spot octopus, use specialized proteins in their suckers to “taste” with their arms. Anik Grearson Share this: ...