Octopuses are ambidextrous, a new study finds, but they favor their front arms for investigating surroundings and their back arms for locomotion.

All eight arms of an octopus can be used for whatever their cephalopod owner wishes, but some arms are favored for certain tasks.

A new, detailed analysis of how octopuses wield their famously flexible appendages suggests that all eight arms share a skill set, but the front four spend more time on exploration and the back four on movement. The findings, published September 11 in Scientific Reports, provide a comprehensive accounting of how subtle arm movements coordinate the clever invertebrates’ repertoire of behaviors.