Named after the Ancient Greek term for 'eight-footed,' octopuses have eight, suction-filled arms, not tentacles—the latter only feature suckers at their tips.

Octopus suction cups are filled with modified sensory receptors that can bind with a greater variety of materials and transport a wider array of information, such as flavor, from tactile stimuli. These structures allow the animal to search for food as it crawls the ocean floor.

Octopuses are famously intelligent, solitary creatures covered in hundreds of chemical-sensing suckers. They're also pretty fascinating pets, and even enjoy playing. The crew at OctoLab put one of its more playful mollusks into four different Escape Room-like cages to see how long it would take for it to escape. Watch this video to see the brilliant, if a bit unsettling, methods the animal uses.

In deep midwater, roughly 1,000 feet below the water's surface, completely transparent Cystisoma hide in plain sight from predators. Their retinas are splayed out thin across their disproportionately large eyes to avoid detection, and their entire bodies are transparent, difficult to see even as they are held in the palm of your hand. Learn more about the creatures here.

Meet the amphioxus, a small eel-like animal that has a lot to teach us about brain evolution. The genetic roots of our brains can be seen in these unusual creatures. This three-minute educational video focuses on the evolutionary history of the human brain through these odd little critters with a 500-million-year-old history.

In a short clip captured during a blackwater night dive in the Lembeh Strait, a blanket octopus unfolds and displays a colorful web multiple times its original size. The aquatic animal’s iridescent body and tentacles glow against the nighttime...

From transparent fish to the heaviest worms on the planet, these seven creepy creatures lurk in the deep sea. Learn all about them and the unique traits that help them survive and hunt.

All modern animals have five or fewer digits on each of their limbs. Roughly 348 million years ago, at least two species had eight: the Ichthyostega and the Acanthostega. According to Dollo's law, complex evolved features are very unlikely to recur in evolution. Researchers believe humans won't develop more than five digits because it would impact other body parts too much.

Research shows that psychedelics may induce something called "critical periods" in the adult brain, which can make our brains more open to learning and changing, like they once were back in early childhood. Psychedelics similarly change how social creatures like octopuses behave, which demonstrates that these animals could help us better understand our own neurobiology.

In this video, researchers from the world-renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium discuss the most fascinating deep sea creatures, and how they developed some of their strangest features.

The colossal squid, the world's largest invertebrate, remained hidden from human discovery until nearly a century ago. Explore the world of the enormous and mysterious creature, including its features, habitat, and scientific significance. You can even plan a visit to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and marvel at a real-life display.

There are more than 600 muscles that crisscross the human body, and each has a name that's more than a simple label. Muscle names also typically communicate the muscle's size, behavior, length, location, appearance, direction, and attachments to bone. These names usually have Greek or Latin roots, such as in the case of the deltoid muscles, which are named in reference to the Greek letter delta (𐤃).

Rather than having a circulatory system, oxygen is directly absorbed through their skin and spreads through a fluid called hemolymph as tardigrades crawl. When molting to grow, they shed their outer skin and stylets—sharp mouth parts used to pierce prey—which are regrown in their salivary glands.

Siphonophores are colonial jelly-like creatures made up of specialized segments that work together as one. They're fairly unknown despite being a significant sea predator. Sink into their strange beauty with this video.

Scientists have long known the intimate features of bee anatomy: six limbs, five eyes, lots of hair, a long, tasteless tube -like tongue, and wings that stroke close to 12,000 times a minute. But getting inside the mind or consciousness of a...

Unlike traditional prosthetics that rely on surface electrodes or mechanical parts, this system uses implanted titanium and nerve-connected electrodes to enable a seamless brain-to-arm connection. Patients train in virtual reality with their implanted signals before using the physical prosthesis.

Parasitic organisms—including flatworms and barnacles, not just fungi—can modify animal behavior. They can give rise to dancing fish, pulsating snails, suicidal rats, and more. Though some of these pathogens can sicken humans, there is no strong evidence that any can control human behavior.

Creatures like fish rely on suction to consume food, flexing their gills to create water currents that vacuum up their meals. The evolution of the tongue enabled vertebrates to completely cut ties with the sea, moving onto land where they could sample new foods and ways to eat them.

Lacking a nucleus and other organelles to maximize space for oxygen-carrying hemoglobin and enhance maneuverability through narrow capillaries, there are about four times as many red blood cells and platelets as all other cell types in the body combined. However, about half of the body's cell biomass consists of skeletal myocytes, or muscle fibers.

Modern humans are not the only creatures classified as part of the Homo genus. This article examines the eight other humans that fall under the Homo umbrella.

At the top of the structure are thin filaments known as "taste hairs" that bind taste-producing substances to the surfaces of the cell, after which corresponding electrical signals are sent to the brain. Adults have 2,000 to 4,000 taste buds on their tongue.

Shellears use tiny hooks on their front pectoral fins to grip rock like Velcro and take many pauses to recover energy between bursts of movement. Their pectoral girdle—an arch of bone—supports the muscle system needed for the roughly ten-hour climb.

These muscles connect to their vertebrae, and allow the creature to move in various unique ways. Snakes can slither, move in a straight line, swim, jump and even "fly."

Bats and dolphins produce sound to reflect off surfaces and create a mental image of their surroundings. Owls' faces are dish-shaped to help funnel sounds to their ears, including that of mice moving along leaves or snow. Pinnipeds, such as seals and walruses, hear in both air and water.

Ever notice cartoon characters only have four fingers? There’s a surprising reason why and it goes back to the first Mickey Mouse cartoons. From saving money to cultural taboos, here’s why animators draw hands this way.

Possessing flexible skulls with elastic ligaments and unfused jaw bones, snakes can open their mouths to engulf much larger prey, and adjustable airways enable them to continue breathing while their teeth grip onto their food. Through slow digestion and specialized cells that decompose bones, some snakes can survive on a single large meal for over a year.

By incorporating tough, cellulose-rich cell walls, rapid movement of molecules via cytoplasmic streaming, and other biological techniques, some unicellular organisms can bypass the physical limitations that restrict the size of cells. Organisms such as the Stentor coeruleus and Acetabularia can be seen without microscopes.

Nicknamed the "unicorn of the sea," narwhals have no teeth aside from two canines that grow directly forward as tusks. For roughly 85% of females, they stay embedded in the bone. For males, they grow into large, spirally tusks that are full of nerve endings and blood vessels. Scientists today believe that tusks likely formed for sexual selection purposes and eventually evolved to assist in other processes, such as hunting.

Various organisms that appear to be different types of crabs, such as porcelain crabs and coconut crabs, have been shown to belong to distinct decapod lineages whose predecessors resemble shrimp or lobsters. Environmental pressures and other factors have caused these species to develop similar characteristics, which nature has shown are beneficial to survival.

With so many fish in the sea, which are the largest? This infographic shows fantastic illustrations of the 75 largest sea animals, ranked by average size. The detailed visual is organized in descending order of size, starting with the blue whale,...