Fact of The Day – Octopus Arms React To Stimuli After Death

Research has been conducted by teams from both St. George’s University in London and Anton Dohrn Zoological Station in Italy. The research was carried out to look at how an octopus’ arms and how it reacts to different stimuli. The research found that the arms of an octopus is responsible exploring, catching prey, problem solving and providing a lot of the coordination needed for survival. The researchers found that the arms contain between thousands and millions of neurons which is partly independent from the brain.

To carry out the research, the teams euthanized octopuses to separate them from their arms. The arms were kept in chilled seawater for up to an hour before the research began. While some of the arms were kept laid down in a horizontal position, the others were hung up vertically. After providing different stimuli to the arms, the researchers found that the arms curled away from where the stimulus was, even hours after the arms had been severed. This happens because of the neurons in the arms which are specifically for sensing any possible physical harm.