PZ Myers. 2005 Mar 24. Octopus marginatus and Octopus aculeatus. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/octopus_marginatus_and_octopus_aculeatus/>. Accessed 2008 Dec 01.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Thursday, March 24, 2005

Octopus marginatus and Octopus aculeatus

I'm getting slow in my old age…everyone has been sending me e-mail about this extremely nifty pair of walking octopuses, Octopus marginatus and Octopus (Abdopus) aculeatus, and I'm only now getting around to it. And wouldn't you know it, that young whippersnapper, Josh Rosenau, has beaten me to it and has the movies. Go look, they are bizarre.

image
Kinematics of bipedal movements in octopuses. (A) Video frame of O. marginatus walking bipedally. (B) Phase diagram of O. marginatus. L, left arm; R, right arm; U, arm lifted from the bottom; D, arm placed on the bottom. (C) Phase diagram of O. aculeatus. (D) Gait diagram of O. aculeatus drawn from video (7/60-s lapse between each panel). The arrowhead in the first frame indicates the direction of walking. Six arms (white) coil, raise off the bottom, and obscure the head and mantle (gray). The right arm (orange) pushes the animal backward throughout the sequence. The left arm (blue) is lifted from the bottom in frame 4 and replaced on the bottom in frame 5. At least one arm is in contact with the bottom at all times.

Huffard CL, Boneka F, Full RJ (2005) Underwater Bipedal Locomotion by Octopuses in Disguise. Science 307(5717):1927.

Posted by PZ Myers on 03/24 at 04:18 PM
Science • Organisms • 3 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
  1. GET THE FxCK OUT OF HERE! That is just wrong.
    #: Posted by  on  03/24  at  04:25 PM
  2. I saw it on the TV this evening and immediately thought of you...
    #: Posted by Sharon  on  03/24  at  05:34 PM
  3. I LOVE the name of their paper. And how the octopus seems to combine tiptoeing with the "Keep On Truckin'" walk.
    #: Posted by Rana  on  03/24  at  06:16 PM
  4. You have my sympathies. I stumbled across the arabidopsis article yesterday and was goin to use it for a post Friday (to get on the Friday Ark - But Carl Zimmer and De Rerum Natura beat me to it!
    Also, a belated thanks for including me in your blog roll.
    #: Posted by afarensis  on  03/24  at  07:56 PM
  5. I just watched them. Totally cool! The second one (octopus aculeatus) reminded me of an ent attacking Isengard.
    #: Posted by  on  03/24  at  08:28 PM
  6. Does "bizarre" mean "previously unobserved"?

    I left this comment at Thoughts from Kansas:

    The headline writer said "tiptoe," but the story itself says "striding," and the clips don't show tiptoe. Rather, each octopus articulates (bends) its forward arm approximately in the middle, lays it down on the sea floor, and rolls forward over the forearm. Like our gait--heel strike followed by rolling forward over the foot.

    Also of interest: "Bipedal locomotion was thought to require muscle pulling against hard skeleton. But the octopuses walk using opposing muscle movements. . . ." Five years of Pilates have taught me that the bones are spacers and levers, and we move them by coordinating opposing muscle groups.
    #: Posted by  on  03/24  at  08:33 PM
  7. Wow! Hard to believe it's taken this long for me to find this blog, and the walking octopi feature was a great intro. That incredible T. Rex find led me here...

    Oh, boy, there goes another ten or fifteen minutes of every day-- and just look at that enticing blogroll, with all of those unfamiliar names!

    Now to get to work on that avatar...
    #: Posted by  on  03/25  at  01:59 AM
  8. The octopi are makin fun of us. "Ooh! Look at me, I'm a human, walking around on my legs! Haha, butterface human dweebs." Spiteful octopi!
    #: Posted by  on  03/25  at  02:47 AM
  9. They think they know what's best! They're making a fool of us! They're setting a bad example! They ought to be more careful!
    #: Posted by Matt McIrvin  on  03/25  at  09:12 PM