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A nine - armed octopus get off Japan ’s coast about terminate up being dinner , until the family preparing it noticed its additional arm and mail it to a museum instead , according to news show generator .
While strange , this extra appendage — which was n’t fully formed , but a small offshoot on a even arm — is n’t unheard of in octopuses , said Michael Vecchione , an invertebrate zoologist at the Smithsonian ’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington , D.C. , who was not involve with this octopus ’s discovery .
The octopus’s ninth arm is an offshoot on its left third arm.
Octopuses are open of regenerate their arms , but " sometimes regeneration does n’t work quite right , " Vecchione severalize Live Science . " If an arm gets damaged , it might rejuvenate wrong ; it could wander up with extra tissue paper originate out , and that redundant tissue could turn into an arm . "
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The nine - armed oddity was caught in a trap with three other octopuses on Nov. 13 in Shizugawa Bay , in the northeastern town of Minamisanriku , Japan , allot to The Mainichi , a Japanese newspaper . Kazuya Sato , 40 , who cultivates wakame seaweed for a living , sic the trap and make for the catch habitation , where his 65 - class - old mother boil them in a pot of water . She discover the ninth arm in brief after drop the creature in the pot .
The devilfish was already dead , but its dead body was intact , so Sato bring it to the local Shizugawa Nature Center , where the octopus was carry on in alcohol and will soon go on display .
Shizugawa Bay is about 125 miles ( 200 kilometers ) north of the now decommissioned Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant , which had a nuclear meltdown following a disastrous7.9 - magnitude earthquake and tsunami in 2011 . But Vecchione suppose it ’s improbable the octopus ' 9th arm was induce by radiation poisoning . Reports of bifurcate octopus weapon system have been catalogued all over the worldly concern for yr , he said . For instance , a 1960 report in the journalNaturedescribes an devilfish at the University of Miami Marine Laboratory that had " an unnatural third left arm " with two branches , according to the write up ’s author . A 1965 field in the journalProceedings of the Japan Academydescribed legion octopus with more than eight arms , including one that had 90 .
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Having just one bifurcated arm probably does n’t affect an octopus , because it ’s pocket-sized and but dangles off the arm ; it might even be functional and have the ability to move and feel , Vecchione say . " The worst case is that it ’s just sort of draw there , but it probably would n’t be too much of a hurt , " he said . However , octopus with many arms might confront more challenge . " That might regard their ability to hunt or swim , " he say .
Originally published on Live Science .
