From Planet Ark: Octopus ‘Walks’ on Two Arms, Researchers Find.
Two little species of Indian Ocean octopus can tuck up six of their arms while running on the other two, US researchers reported on Thursday.
They can use their other six arms to disguise themselves from predators, either as rolling coconuts or clumps of floating algae, the team at the University of California Berkeley and Universitas Sam Ratulangi in North Sulawesi, Indonesia found.
The discovery, published in Friday's issue of the journal Science, discredits theories that walking requires hard bones and skeletal muscle, as octopuses have neither.
"We have observed octopuses that do indeed walk," Berkeley's Christine Huffard and colleagues write in their report. [continue]
And then there's this thing about a running vampire bat over at BoingBoing. Amazing.
Posted on March 24, 2005 01:23 PM. Filed under: animals, insects, etc.