Hey, suckers

Biologist David Scheel's new study of the octopus separates misconceptions from the often more extraordinary facts

- Nicola Davis

Set on a dock, a bucket was filled with what appeared to be the ingredients for that night's dinner - a collection of freshly severed octopus arms. But then, it began.

"As we were standing there for some time chatting, each arm began to crawl out of the bucket," said David Scheel, a professor of marine biology at Alaska Pacific University.

As the movement continued, sucker by sucker, the tips of the tentacles reached over the rim. The dead was walking.

It sounds like the stuff of nightmares, but for Scheel it was an example of the fascinating biology of the ocean's most enigmatic inhabitants.

Whether immortalised as giant monsters, fetishised in tentacle pornography or celebrated as psychic football pundits, octopuses have long fascinated humans.

Their appearance is undoubtedly captivating. As Victor Hugo noted in his description of an octopus attack: when swimming, the animal resembles a closed umbrella without a handle.

But their anatomy is no less intriguing. The brain located between the eyes, while what looks like a bulbous head is actually the mantle, containing the stomach and anus among other structures. And they not only boast eight arms - which can regrow if severed - but three hearts.

The crawling tentacles highlight another astonishing feature.

"The movement of the suckers relative to each other is not coordinated by the central brain, as we might imagine in a human, for example," said Scheel. "Instead, it's coordinated within each arm."