This is a rare sight.
A nine-armed octopus has been discovered after being caught off Japan’s coast.
The family that discovered the peculiar creature was preparing it for dinner, noticed its extra limb, and sent it to a museum for researchers, Live Science reported.
Michael Vecchione, an invertebrate zoologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., said the creature's extra limb wasn’t fully formed, which isn’t unheard of in octopuses.
Octopuses can regenerate their arms, but “sometimes regeneration doesn’t work quite right,” Vecchione said. “If an arm gets damaged, it might regenerate wrong; it could wind up with extra tissue growing out, and that extra tissue could turn into an arm.”
The nine-armed creature was caught in a trap in Japan with three other octopuses on November 13.
Kazuya Sato set the trap and brought the octopus home. The 40-year-old’s mother boiled them in a pot of water and found the ninth arm after dropping the animal in the pot.
Although the octopus was already dead, the body was still intact. The family then brought it to the Shizugawa Nature Center. The octopus has since been preserved in alcohol and will go on display very soon.
Sato found the mollusk in Shizugawa Bay, about 125 miles away from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. In 2011, the plant had a nuclear meltdown followed by an earthquake and tsunami. However, Vecchione says it is unlikely that the octopus’ ninth arm was caused by radiation poisoning.
An extra appendage does not really have a negative effect on an octopus.
“The worst case is that it's just sort of dragging there, but it probably wouldn't be too much of a detriment," Vecchione added.
LISTEN NOW on the RADIO.COM App
Follow RADIO.COM
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
