THREE HEARTS AND NINE BRAINS!

Three hearts, nine brains and blue blood! Not a man, but an octopus. Two hearts pump blood to the gills and the third to the body. In addition to the central brain each of 8 arms has a mini brain that allows it to act independently. Octopuses have blue blood to adapt to cold, low oxygen water by using hemocyanin, a copper rich protein.

One strange thing is that an octopus doesn't know where it's arm is unless it can see it. The arm is sending signals about tastes and textures but no details about location and orientation. In our bodies we have an ability called proprioception that lets us know where our arms are even if they are out of sight. We can scratch our back with precision because we know where our hand is relative to our back. We carry a fixed map of our body in our brain, but that would be impossible for an octopus, since their body shape is so fluid and constantly changing. Another interesting thing about having eight arms covered with suckers - how do they keep all those arms from sticking to each other and getting all tied up in knots. Especially when they don't know exactly where their arms are. Turns out that octopus skin secretes a chemical to keep the suckers from sticking to it.

There is one arm that plays an important role in octopus sex. It is called the hectocotylus (try to spell that with your eyes closed.) Each female lays up to 100,000 fertilized eggs in clusters under an overhang. The mothers never feed during this period and can lose more than 50 percent of their body weight before the young hatch. In most cases the females die shorty afterwards. Sex is bad for the health of the males too. Once they have mated the males begin to decline rapidly  as they enter a period of senescence. They stop eating and begin acting erratically, until they die shortly afterwards.

An octopus might ask, how can humans manage with just one heart?

KV George

kvgeorgein@gmail.com