The Octopus: More Complex than a Simple Mollusk Should Be

The octopus continues to surprise researchers. Its amazing body, eyes, and behavior seem far too complex for a soft-bodied invertebrate. Yet we are told that these animals (pl. octopuses), along with their fellow cephalopods the squid and cuttlefish, are descendants of clams and snails. Wondrous as those mollusks are in their own right, they lack tentacles with suckers, camera eyes, and the behavioral complexity of the octopus.

Recently, Israeli scientists studied the crawling behavior of O...