Nine arms, no problem
In 2021, researchers from the Institute of Marine Research in Spain used an underwater camera to follow a man Octopus Vulgaris, Or common Octopus. On the left, three arms were intact, while the others were reduced to uneven, blunt lengths, sharply bitten at different points. Although the researchers were not witnessing the injury itself, they noted that the right arm of the front – known as R1 – unusually regenerated, split into two separate limbs and gave the Octopus a total of nine arms.
“In this person we believe that this condition was the result of abnormal regeneration [a genetic mutation] After a meeting with a predator, “explains Sam Soule, one of the researchers and the first author of the corresponding paper recently published in Animals.
The researchers called the Octopus Salvador because of his split arm that stood in itself like the two inverted ends of the mustache of Salvador Dali. For two years, the team studied the behavior of the Cephalopod and discovered that it used its split arm less when doing “more risky” movements such as exploring or grabbing food that the animal would force his arm to extend and expose further injury.
“One of the conclusions of our research is that the Octopus probably retains a long -term memory of the original injury, because it tends to use the split poor for less risky tasks compared to the others,” Jorge Hernández Urcera, a lead author of the study. “This idea of lasting memory brought Dalí's famous painting into mind The persistence of the memoryWho eventually became the title of the paper that we published about monitoring this specific Octopus. “
While the octopus was more protective against its extra limbs, the nervous system was adapted to the use of the extra appendix, because the octopus was observed, after a while recovering from his injuries, with the help of his ninth arm for investigating his environment.
“That nine -armed Octopus is a perfect example of how adjustable these animals are,” adds Pelled. “Most animals would struggle with an unusual part of the body, but not on the Octopus. In this case the Octopus had a split (split) arm and still used it effectively, just like any other arm. That tells us that the nervous system did not treat it as a mistake – thought of how he could make it work.”
Kenna Hughes-Castleberry is the science communicator at Jila (a Joint Physics Research Institute between the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado Boulder) and a freelance science journalist. Focusing its most important scriptures are quantum physics, quantum technology, deep technology, social media and the diversity of people in these areas, especially women and people from ethnic and racial groups of minorities. Follow her on LinkedIn or visit her website.
