Scientists have made an important discovery that confirmed what some already believed to be true about the octopus: it can "see" with their skin.
According to Discovery News, authors of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology learned a certain octopus species utilizes proteins in their skin that can also be found in eyes. The proteins, opsins, can even operate independently from the creature's central nervous system.
"Octopus skin doesn't sense light in the same amount of detail as the animal does when it uses its eyes and brain," study lead author Desmond Ramirez, a doctoral student in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology (EEMB) at the University of California - Santa Barbara (UCSB), said in a press release. "But it can sense an increase or change in light. Its skin is not detecting contrast and edge but rather brightness."
This skin characteristic apparently helps the octopus' camouflage ability by making the transition somewhat automatic. Todd Oakley, a co-author on the study and an EEMB colleague of Ramirez's, called the process Light-Activated Chromatophore Expansion (LACE).
"We've discovered new components of this really complex behavior of octopus camouflage," he said in the release. "It looks like the existing cellular mechanism for light detection in octopus eyes, which has been around for quite some time, has been co-opted for light sensing in the animal's skin and used for LACE.
"So instead of completely inventing new things, LACE puts parts together in new ways and combinations."
The researchers will now turn their attention to where this characteristic came from and how it has been passed down.
"Do they all come from the same ancestral source or did they evolve multiple times?" Ramirez said. "What kind of behaviors do the different groups share and what kind of behaviors does the skin sensing light underlie?"
