Mavis and Olga, a tale of two bipedal hexapuses - August 13, 2008
Posted on behalf of Katrina Charles, BA Media Fellow
In the words of the Express: “Experts up in arms after finding octopuses have… two legs”.
As mentioned on this blog last month, scientists from 20 centres across Europe have been studying how octopuses use their limbs. They have analysed data from 2,000 observations of octopuses playing with toys such as the Rubik’s Cube.
Their headline discovery is that octopuses have six 'arms' and two 'legs'. It had been believed that the back four tentacles were used for propulsion and the front four for manipulation. But researchers have found that they use the rearmost two tentacles, their legs, to get around over rocks and the seabed, leaving the remaining six arms for eating, according to the Daily Mail. They are reported to use their third pair of arms to help them get out of a tangle (Times).
The researchers had originally been studying if the octopuses favoured tentacles from one side over the other. They found that the octopuses were mostly multidextrous.
“We identified seven octopuses that genuinely do prefer one side over the other, possibly because of some weakness in the other eye” says Claire Little from the Weymouth Sea Life Centre (Times).
The participants included Mavis, a giant Pacific octopus, who lives in a tank at Weymouth Sea Life Centre, and Olga, a common octopus who lived at the Great Yarmouth Sea Life Centre but sadly passed away last week (Times, Norwich Evening News).
The Times notes “octopuses are among the most intelligent of marine creatures and can learn to open jam jars and manipulate small objects such as the Rubik’s Cube – although, so far as is known, none has yet succeeded in solving the puzzle”, which apparently offended one reader, John in Adelaide, who clearly has a bit on an issue with Rubik’s cubes.
Considering that this was a study that took place across Europe, it’s odd that all the coverage seems to be in the UK.
This post is dedicated to the memory of Olga. RIP.
Images: Octopus – Corbis / Rubik’s cube – photo by Culture-Culte via flickr and under Creative Commons
