Octopuses can 'walk' on two legs<\/p>\n
Two little species of Indian Ocean octopus can tuck up six of
\ntheir arms while running on the other two, U.S. researchers
\nreported on Thursday.<\/p>\n
They can use their other six arms to disguise themselves from
\npredators, either as rolling coconuts or clumps of floating
\nalgae, the team at the University of California Berkeley and
\nUniversitas Sam Ratulangi in North Sulawesi, Indonesia found.<\/p>\n
The discovery, published in Friday's issue of the journal
\nScience, discredits theories that walking requires hard bones and
\nskeletal muscle, as octopuses have neither.<\/p>\n
"We have observed octopuses that do indeed walk," Berkeley's
\nChristine Huffard and colleagues write in their report.<\/p>\n
"Individuals of Octopus marginatus (from Indonesia) and
\nOctopus (Abdopus) aculeatus (from Australia) move bipedally along
\nsand using a rolling gait," they added.<\/p>\n
"This locomotion differs from their normal crawling, which
\nusually involves several arms sprawling around the body, using
\nthe suckers to push and pull the animal along."<\/p>\n
The researchers have videotaped the animals, one the size of a
\nwalnut and the other the size of an apple, "walking."<\/p>\n
Walking on two legs, or arms, makes sense for an octopus,
\nHuffard's team said.<\/p>\n
"When an octopus moves quickly, it becomes visually
\nconspicuous and must employ unique behaviors to evade its
\npredator's search image," they wrote.<\/p>\n
"By walking, both O. marginatus and O. aculeatus are able to
\nmove quickly while using six of their arms to remain disguised:
\nO. marginatus perhaps as a rolling coconut and O. aculeatus as a
\nclump of algae tiptoeing away." --Reuters<\/p>",
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