The octopus borrows a jointed-vertebrate strategy to transfer an item between points.
Abstract
Animals with rigid skeletons can rely on several mechanisms to simplify motor control1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 — for example, they have skeletal joints that reduce the number of variables and degrees of freedom that need to be controlled. Here we show that when the octopus uses one of its long and highly flexible arms to transfer an object from one place to another, it employs a vertebrate-like strategy, temporarily reconfiguring its arm into a stiffened, articulated, quasi-jointed structure. This indicates that an articulated limb may provide an optimal solution for achieving precise, point-to-point movements.
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Supplementary information
Supplementary Methods
Includes technical information on video and EMG recordings and kinematical analysis of the fetching movements. It also describes how the quasi-articulated structure is dynamically adjusted according to the position of the grasped food along the arm and demonstrates the positive correlation between the geometrical characteristics of the quasi-articulated structure and the recorded muscle activities. (DOC 35 kb)
Supplementary Figure
EMG recordings are positively correlated with the length of the quasi-articulated structure. (DOC 52 kb)
Movie
A movie showing an octopus in captivity fetching a living crayfish to its mouth. (QT 10356 kb)
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Sumbre, G., Fiorito, G., Flash, T. et al. Motor control of flexible octopus arms. Nature 433, 595–596 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/433595a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/433595a
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