Alex Mustard/NPL/Minden Pictures
Making Moves
Deep beneath the waves, an octopus glides across the ocean floor. Suddenly, it spots a seashell nearby. It grabs the shell in a lightning-fast move. Got it!
Scientists now have names for octopus moves like these. Researchers spent eight years watching 25 octopuses. They recorded dozens of hours of footage and created the world’s first octopus dictionary.
Magical Motions
Marine biologist Chelsea Bennice and a team of scientists wanted to understand how octopuses use their eight arms to explore and hunt. Octopuses don’t have bones. Their limbs are made of muscle, which allows them to bend, stretch, and twist in every direction.
“There’s no other animal that’s capable of this extreme arm flexibility and control,” says Bennice.
The team filmed octopuses in six locations. By studying their movements, the scientists identified 12 arm actions and 15 different behaviors.
“They often use their front arms for exploring and back arms for locomotion,” Bennice explains.
The scientists’ research isn’t just for making a dictionary. It’s also being used to design soft robots that can squish into tight spaces, like octopuses do.
“We do this research to discover more about the animal but also to help other fields,” Bennice says.
