EVERY octopus has a favourite eye. Such behavioural asymmetry, or 鈥渉andedness鈥�, has never before been seen in invertebrates.
Ruth Byrne and her team from the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research near Vienna waved a plastic crab in front of eight captive octopuses (Octopus vulgaris). They found that five animals consistently followed the action with their left eye, while the others preferred to use their right (Animal Behaviour, vol 64, p 461).
鈥淥ctopuses often rest in small cavities from where they can only use one eye at a time to look out,鈥� says Byrne. She suggests that the part of the brain that normally handles information from the less favoured eye gets reassigned for other important tasks, such as memorising landmarks.
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