According to their study published today in Current Biology, octopus skin produces a chemical signal to override the tentacles’ suction-cup reflexes. and Israel think they’ve figured out how octopuses do it. Levy, Hochner and their colleagues in the U. But, for an octopus, it’s an important evolutionary feat of movement control. The problem of arms sticking together and getting tied in knots might seem silly from a human perspective. “It is surprising that no one even asked this question,” says Guy Levy, a researcher in the lab of octopus neurobiologist Benny Hochner at the Hebrew National University of Jerusalem. So, why don’t these arms stick together or end up in knots? You'd think, however, that an octopus would suffer from over-attaching limbs: their eight tentacles are lined with hundreds of tactile suction cups that change shape and sense food. Humans only have to worry about that in unfortunate incidents involving crazy glue. Imagine your arms stuck to almost everything they touched.
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