Abstract
All animals must have a sense of touch, if only to avoid damage. The problem is to discover how much information about their environment the animals can derive from this sense. Octopus vulgaris has proved to be a useful tool for the investigation of how much a soft-bodied invertebrate animal can derive from contacts with its environment because it learns rapidly in the laboratory. The limits of its ability to discriminate can be deduced from the results of training experiments.
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Recommended Readings
Hanlon, R T and Messenger, J B (1996). Cephalopod Behaviour Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wells, M J (1978). Octopus: Physiology and Behaviour of an Advanced Invertebrate. Chapman and Hall.
Young, J Z (1971). The Anatomy of the Nervous System of Octopus vulgaris Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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Grasso, F., Wells, M. (2016). Tactile Sensing in the Octopus. In: Prescott, T., Ahissar, E., Izhikevich, E. (eds) Scholarpedia of Touch. Scholarpedia. Atlantis Press, Paris. https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-133-8_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-133-8_5
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