Scientists Discover How Octopuses Synchronize Their Arms- Simple Elegance Without Rhythm

Researchers have found out how octopuses move and coordinate their arms - simple elegance but without any rhythm.

Each of an octopus's eight arms is soft, flexible and muscular, and acts like it has an infinite number of joints, said the study's lead author, Guy Levy, a postdoctoral researcher of neurobiology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

To make a clear understanding of how these brainy creatures' locomotion worked, researchers watched videos, frame by frame of octopuses crawling around water-filled tanks.

"The octopus, as usual, surprised us," Levy told Live Science. "We found very unique things that we don't see in other animals."

Researchers noted that octopuses used a unique strategies to coordinate their arms while crawling. They also noted that octopuses can crawl in any direction relative to their body orientation, which means, octopuses don't have to turn their bodies to change direction.

"It simply chooses other arms to push the body, and the direction is changed automatically," he added.

"It only has to decide which arms to use, and not how to use them," he said. "It's a very simple solution to a very complicated problem."

"So, either there is no pattern, or it's too complicated to identify with the techniques that we used."

Findings of the study were published in the Cell Press journal Current Biology.