Why Don’t Octopus Suckers Stick To Their Own Skin?

No one’s really looked at this non-stick phenomenon before
Clearly, something about octopus skin was protecting the arms from one another. But what?
The mechanism behind it, though, is a surprisingly simple way to control the fairly complex system that is an octopus’s arm—and it has piqued the interest of researchers in the field of robotics

“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. The problem of arms sticking together and getting tied in knots might seem silly from a human perspective. But, for an octopus, it’s an important evolutionary feat of movement control.

Levy, Hochner and their colleagues in the U. S. and Israel think they’ve figured out how octopuses do it. According to their study published today in Current Biology, octopus skin produces a chemical signal to override the tentacles’ suction-cup reflexes. Each chemical signal may also be unique to the octopus, which would prevent these sometimes-cannibalistic organisms from eating severed pieces of their own arms, too.

www.smithsonianmag.com...

"Octopus skin is incredibly complex; it’s comprised of color-changing cells called chromatophores, along with chemical signaling networks, and nerve cells. To test whether a chemical signal might be at play, they smeared extracted octopus skin secretions and fish skin secretions on different petri dishes, and put them in the octopus’ tanks with the severed arms.

The forces applied by the severed arms to petri dishes with octopus slime were 10 times less than a regular petri dish and 20 times less than a petri dish with fish slime. Clearly, some sort of skin chemical conveyed the message, “Tentacles off!”


So basically, a chemical excreted by octopus skin tells their severed arms, “Don’t grab me or eat me!”
Never really thought about it, to be honest
Pretty cool....

a reply to: snarky412

The wonders of nature...

A bit like how a rattlesnake never dies when it bites its tongue...

Kindest respects

Rodinus

originally posted by: Rodinus
a reply to: snarky412

The wonders of nature...

A bit like how a rattlesnake never dies when it bites its tongue...

Kindest respects

Rodinus

The wonders & mysteries of Mother Nature never ceases to amaze me!!

a reply to: snarky412

Great minds think alike in a way Snarky...

Being a veterinarian I was about to post a thread about this discovery this morning after my first coffee... but you beat me to it.... Bwahhhhhhhhhh sniff sniff...

Kindest respects

Rodinus

originally posted by: Rodinus
a reply to: snarky412

Great minds think alike in a way Snarky...

Being a veterinarian I was about to post a thread about this discovery this morning after my first coffee... but you beat me to it.... Bwahhhhhhhhhh sniff sniff...

Kindest respects

Rodinus

Aw, so sowwy....

Here's a little something to make up for it

a reply to: snarky412

Ohhhh my...

My hair will not be standing on end with that cuppa but smashing the tiles out of my roof...

Kindest respects

Rodinus

This was also a broadcast on NPR, kool information to share! Star!