Some of the most amazing creatures live in the deep blue sea. Cuttlefish, squids and octopuses, for example. These soft-bodied cephalopods have a strikingly sophisticated nervous system, camera-like eyes, three hearts, and an extraordinary ability to switch the colour and texture of their skin to mimic their background in the blink of an eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Mesoscopic Imaging Facility (MIF)<\/a> at EMBL Barcelona was recently involved in studying one unique feature of the octopus: the ephemeral structures on the surface of their skin called K\u00f6lliker\u2019s organs. These structures are present in embryos but disappear before the adult stage, and their function is unknown. MIF examined specimens of hatchlings and juveniles of Octopus vulgaris<\/em>, or common octopus, as part of a project led by Roger Villanueva from the Institut de Ci\u00e8ncies del Mar at CSIC<\/a> in Spain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Villanueva and his colleagues examined the K\u00f6lliker\u2019s organs \u2013 which he described as \u201cmini brooms on the surface of the baby octopuses\u201d \u2013 from 17 octopod species collected from around the world. With the help of MIF\u2019s detailed images, the researchers were able to characterise these organs in more detail. They observed that the structures are evenly distributed on the surface of the skin and are roughly the same size, regardless of the size of the species. Their results were recently published <\/a>in Frontiers in Marine Science<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n