2. ‘ALIEN’ OCTOPUS WITH A TRICK UP ITS SLEEVE
Scientists made two interesting discoveries about the octopus this year. An analysis of its genome revealed striking differences between the octopus and other invertebrates. They found hundreds of octopus-specific genes, with many highly expressed in structures such as the brain, skin, and suckers.
“The late British zoologist Martin Wells said the octopus is an alien. In this sense, then, our paper describes the first sequenced genome from an alien,” says Clifton Ragsdale, associate professor in the departments of neurobiology and organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago.
As if that weren’t strange enough, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, discovered an octopus that does something truly odd to trap prey: Taps it on the shoulder and startles the victim into its arms. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Roy Caldwell.
Watch an octopus use the trick to trap a shrimp:
Now we head to the forest for some aerial arachnid stunts…
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