Octopuses are fascinating in more ways than one. Beyond their impressive intelligence, they also have other unique features like three hearts, an amazing ability to camouflage, and a central brain ...

Each arm can also react independently to stimuli without involving the central brain. (There’s a rather gruesome demonstration of the latter fact: “Amputated octopus arms,” Olson says ...

The suckers are also packed with sensory receptors that allow the octopus to taste and smell things that they touch—like combining a hand with a tongue and a nose. The researchers believe the ...

As a result, each of the eight arms of an octopus has its own mini brain, while the ninth, central brain is located between the eyes and shaped like a doughnut around the esophagus. Read more ...

Each octopus arm has a massive nervous system, with more neurons combined across the eight arms than in the animal's brain. These neurons are concentrated in a large axial nerve cord (ANC), which ...

Discover how researchers identified an octopus' ancient sex chromosomes and why their genetic history is such a mystery.

Octopus arms are the ultimate multitaskers, bending, twisting, and curling with an impressive range of motion that would make a yoga instructor envious.

The cuttlefish has one of the largest brain-to-body size ratios of any invertebrate, perhaps even larger than that of the octopus. The cuttlefish brain can handle input from a variety of senses ...