Your Moment Of Octopus

Our eight-armed friend gets out of a jam:

Tamsin Woolley-Barker reminds us what makes the creature so spectacular:

Three-fifths of his neurons are in his arms. He has nerve cells and “eyes” all over his body. Like an eight-legged brainiac Mr. Potatohead, he is an inside-out neocortex covered in cameras. He sees through his skin, and thinks with it too. Each skin-neuron triggers a muscle connected to a tiny, pigment-filled, light-reflecting skin sac, flattening and stretching it to make a patch of that color. As many as two hundred of these sacs, each with its own muscle and brain cell, can fill an area of skin the size of a pencil eraser. It’s a shimmering pixel display that is also watching you.

Previous Dish on all things octopus here.

(Hat tip: The Hairpin)