Scientists now know how octopuses coordinate their tentacle arms when they crawl.

Using high speed cameras, a team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem captured images of crawling octopuses on film in their attempt to find out how exactly these mysterious creatures use their ultra flexible arms and glide into movement.

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This new study reveals how simple this movement is. It seems an octopus chooses which specific arm to use to push itself into moving. This new study is also the first detailed analysis of how these cephalopods manage to move without support from a skeleton.

Engineers are now interested in learning their secret to design and develop biologically sound robots.

People would want to explore how to build soft robots that will be highly useful in medical purposes and rescue operations, according to Guy Levy, one of the researchers of this study. He adds that soft bodied robotic arms inspired by octopuses would no longer be limited to fixed joints.

For example, this could be used for accessing narrow spaces or difficult to reach areas that can help people trapped inside a collapsed building.

Levy and colleague Benny Hichner have recorded videos of the animals to find out the secret of their remarkable movement that is both efficient and fluid. They analyzed this special motion per frame.

These new findings show each arm apparently shortens and lengthens while each arm pushes the body in a singular direction.

Levy further explains the octopus only thinks about what arm to use and not which direction it will go. He says this is the octopus' solution to a seemingly complicated problem that it just has to pick an arm that will move in any direction.

These creatures can push any of their eight legs, meaning they have the ability to crawl in any direction regardless of where their body is facing. Surprisingly, there is no rhythm or pattern to their fluid limb movements.

Further studies will involve figuring out the internal functions of the nervous system of these cephalopods to reveal how they control the coordination of their crawling.

This study was published in the journal Current Biology.

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