Octopus bimaculoides visually-evoked prey capture

Octopus limb hyper-redundancy complicates traditional motor control system theory by its extensive sensory inputs, subsequent decision making and arm coordination. Octopus are thought to reduce flexibility control complexity by relying on highly stereotypical motor primitives (e.g. reaching and crawling) and multi-level processes to coordinate movement utilizing extensive peripheral nervous system (PNS) processing. Division of labor along the anterior-posterior axis and limb- specialization of the four anterior arms in T-maze food retrieval further simplify control. Yet, specific arm recruitment and coordination during visually guided reaching behavior remains poorly understood. Here, we investigated visually triggered Octopus bimaculoides hunting capabilities by eliciting and examining prey-specific arm recruitment. When striking crabs, octopus preferred synchronous arm recruitment while sequential arm recruitment with a characteristic swaying movement is employed for shrimp. Such beha..., ,