{"id":139090,"date":"2025-09-13T01:54:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T01:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/139090\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T01:54:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T01:54:11","slug":"new-research-reveals-wild-octopus-arms-in-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/139090\/","title":{"rendered":"New research reveals wild octopus arms in action"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The study is the first to relate arm movements in octopuses in the wild to whole animal behaviors in complex, real-world settings.<\/p>\n

view more\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Credit: Chelsea Bennice, Florida Atlantic University and Roger Hanlon, Woods Hole<\/p>\n

Octopuses are among the most neurologically complex invertebrates, famed for their extraordinary dexterity. Their eight arms allow them to capture hidden prey, communicate, explore, and even mate across varied habitats.<\/p>\n

Although octopus arms rank among some of the most flexible structures in nature, their full range of movement has rarely been studied in the wild \u2013 especially in a range of underwater habitats.<\/p>\n

A new study by Florida Atlantic University<\/a>\u2019s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science<\/a>, in collaboration with researchers from the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, provides a comprehensive look into how wild octopuses use their arms in natural habitats. By analyzing arm movements across diverse environments, this is the first study to relate arm movements to whole animal behaviors in complex, real-world settings.<\/p>\n

The findings, published this week in Scientific Reports, reveal that every arm is capable of performing all action types; however, there was a clear pattern of arm partitioning: front arms mainly use movements to aid in exploration, while back arms use movements that primarily support movement.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the octopuses demonstrated remarkable flexibility \u2013 single arms were shown to perform multiple arm movements simultaneously and different arm movements were coordinated across several arms, showcasing their complex motor control.<\/p>\n

\u201cObserving them in the wild, we saw octopuses use different combinations of arm actions \u2013 sometimes just one arm for tasks like grabbing food, and other times multiple arms working together for behaviors like crawling or launching a parachute attack \u2013 a hunting technique they use to catch prey,\u201d said Chelsea O. Bennice<\/a>, Ph.D., lead author and a research fellow at FAU\u2019s Marine Laboratory, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science.<\/p>\n

Researchers quantified nearly 4,000 arm movements from 25 video recordings of three wild octopus species observed in six distinct shallow-water habitats \u2013 five located in the Caribbean and one in Spain. They identified 12 distinct arm actions across 15 behaviors, each involving one or more of four fundamental arm deformations: shortening (arm length decreases), elongating (arm length increases), bending (arm curves) and torsion (twisting).<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen octopuses move across an open environment, they skillfully use multiple arms to stay camouflaged from predators, such as the moving rock trick or looking like floating seaweed,\u201d said Bennice. \u201cBeyond foraging and locomotion, their arm strength and flexibility are essential for building dens, fending off predators, and competing with rival males during mating. These versatile abilities allow octopuses to thrive in a wide range of habitats.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the nearly 7,000 observed arm deformations, all four types \u2013 bend, elongate, shorten and torsion \u2013 were seen in every arm. However, different regions of each arm \u2013 proximal (closest to the body), medial (middle section) and distal (tip) \u2013 were found to specialize in specific types of arm deformation, reflecting a sophisticated level of functional specialization; bends mostly occurred near the tips, whereas elongations were more frequent closer to the body.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a strong believer that you have to get into the natural world, and especially the sensory world, of whatever animal you study,\u201d said Roger Hanlon, Ph.D., co-author and senior scientist, Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. \u201cThe fieldwork is very arduous, and it takes a lot of luck to get valid natural behaviors.”<\/p>\n

The six octopus habitats in this study varied from smooth, sandy seafloor to highly complex coral reef environments. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUnderstanding these natural behaviors not only deepens our knowledge of octopus biology but also opens exciting new avenues in fields like neuroscience, animal behavior and even soft robotics inspired by these remarkable creatures,\u201d said Bennice.<\/p>\n

Study co-authors are Kendra C. Buresch, a marine biologist; Jennifer H. Grossman; an undergraduate student, and Tyla D. Morano, all with the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole.<\/p>\n

This research was supported in part by the Sholley Foundation, the Ben-Veniste Family Foundation, and the United States Office of Naval Research.<\/p>\n

– FAU –<\/p>\n

About Florida Atlantic University:<\/p>\n

Florida Atlantic University serves more than 32,000 undergraduate and graduate students across six campuses located along the Southeast Florida coast. It is one of only 21 institutions in the country designated by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education as an \u201cR1: Very High Research Spending and Doctorate Production\u201d university and an \u201cOpportunity College and University\u201d for providing greater access to higher education as well as higher earnings for students after graduation. In 2025, Florida Atlantic was nationally recognized as a Top 25 Best-In-Class College and as \u201cone of the country\u2019s most effective engines of upward mobility\u201d by Washington Monthly magazine. Increasingly a first-choice university for students in both Florida and across the nation, Florida Atlantic welcomed its most academically competitive incoming class in the university\u2019s history in Fall 2025. For more information, visit www.fau.edu.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Journal<\/p>\n

Scientific Reports<\/p>\n

Method of Research<\/p>\n

Observational study<\/p>\n

Subject of Research<\/p>\n

Animals<\/p>\n

Article Title<\/p>\n

Octopus arm flexibility facilitates complex behaviors in diverse natural environments<\/p>\n

Article Publication Date<\/p>\n

11-Sep-2025<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"video:\u00a0 The study is the first to relate arm movements in octopuses in the wild to whole animal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-139090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}