![octopus mouth octopus mouth](https://octolab.tv/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Untitled-design-2020-07-17T124915.226.jpg)
Humans have this protein, too, but our store of the molecule is much less active than an octopus’. To do this, octopus use a protein called protein acetylcholinesterase, or AChE. While cut-off limbs do not regrow a new octopus, à la starfish, the octopus can regenerate tentacles with a far superior quality than, say, a lizard’s oftentimes gimpy replacement tail, Harmon writes. If an octopus’ arm is cut off without the poor guy being euthanized, it’s no sweat for the cephalopod. Other research found that, when encountering a piece of food, a severed limb will snatch it up and try to move it in the direction of a phantom octopus mouth. In one experiment, researchers chopped off euthanized octopuses’ tentacles, chilled them in water for an hour, and then still managed to get a split-second response when they probed the severed limbs.
![octopus mouth octopus mouth](http://bioweb.uwlax.edu/bio203/s2012/kalupa_juli/crabGiant_Pacific_Octopus_052.jpg)
Researchers think this allows octopuses to become the ultimate multi-taskers, Katherine Harmon, who’s got a book on octopi coming out soon, writes at Scientific American, since each of their arms can busily work away at some pesky mollusk shell or feel around in some new corner of habitat, nearly independent of the brain.Īnd these arms can continue reacting to stimuli even after they are no longer connected to the main brain in fact, they remain responsive even after the octopus has been euthanized and the arms severed. Octopuses are renowned for their smarts (they can open jars!), and most of their 130 million IQ-raising neurons are located not in their brains but along their eight tentacles.