sensation

researchers found the skin of the octopus’s close relative, the cuttlefish Sepia officinalis, contains gene sequences usually expressed only in the retina of the eye.

The slits of her pupils always remain horizontal, no matter what position she is in, cued by balance receptors called statocysts. These saclike structures are lined with sensory hairs and equipped with small, mineralized balls that shift inside the statocyst in response to motion and gravity. But the always-horizontal pupil can change dramatically

Octopuses and their relatives have what Woods Hole researcher Roger Hanlon calls electric skin. For its color palette, the octopus uses three layers of three different types of cells near the skin’s surface—all controlled in different ways. The deepest layer, containing the white leucophores, passively reflects background light. This process appear

Human eyes have three visual pigments, allowing us to see color. Octopuses have only one—which would make these masters of camouflage, commanding a glittering rainbow of colors, technically color-blind. How, then, does the octopus decide what colors to turn? New evidence suggests cephalopods might be able to see with their skin.

American naturalist Henry Beston writes that animals “are not brethren, they are not underlings” but beings “gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.” They are, he writes, “other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail