Octopus can taste with special cells in its arms, new research reveals

Octopuses have their own way of tasting food. They literally “lick” their food with their tentacles or arms. Eight tentacles of an octopus also function as a tongue alongside working as their arms. The arms of an octopus have multiple suckers which include sensory cells. These cells process the touch and help the animal to determine if a particular prey is safe for consumption or if it is toxic.

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The findings of the sensory cells of octopus

Nicholas Belleno, a professor at Harvard University, said that this trait is extremely beneficial for octopuses because they usually hunt using their limbs. So, how does an octopus eat? They stick their limbs inside holes and cracks to find any suitable prey. Professor Belleno and his team studied the sucker cells of octopus bimaculoides and found some interesting facts. They studied the cells at the molecular level with a powerful microscope and found that the cells were able to respond if they came in contact with the chemicals in the water. These cells had branched endings that helped them to work as sensory cells.

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The scientist used electrophysiology to check the electrical activity of these sensory cells to check how sensitive they were. They found that the receptors of these cells were able to react if they came in contact with both water-soluble and insoluble chemicals.

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If you check octopus images, you can easily find the suckers. But, how these suckers work is often not known. This new study has offered some new facts about octopuses. Some marine animals like an octopus have a kind of olfactory organ that helps them to identify water-soluble and partially soluble chemicals. Earlier it was believed that this phenomenon of underwater smelling occurred with the help of water current and air.

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These new findings finally shed light on how an octopus is able to find its ideal prey during hunting. Often octopuses are called blind hunters because they just use their limbs. But how they found their prey was not clearly known.

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Belleno added that octopuses have an organ called radula inside their mouth. But, it is not a tongue as radula helps the marine animal to cut and scrape the prey like shellfish, and is not adapted to find the taste. The new research about the sucker cells and the sensory cells helped the scientists to finally understand how octopuses taste their food before eating.