For ages, mankind has pondered one seemingly unanswerable question: Why don’t octopuses, known to stick to virtually everything, stick to themselves? How are their tentacle-like arms not rendered useless in a tangled ball seconds after birth? Well, ponder no more: Researchers from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem have discovered how the octopus keeps from sticking to itself.

In a paper published in the journal Current Biology, the University’s Octopus Research Group (which apparently is a thing that exists) made some remarkable findings. For one, the octopus’ brain doesn’t know where any of the arms are at any given time. This would make avoiding tangles seemingly even more daunting, but the solution is altogether more simple: The suction cups are capable of sticking to just about anything but themselves. The scientists believe this is because the suckers shut down whenever they come in contact with a chemical secreted by the octopus’ skin.

Their testing method was straightforward: Using the knowledge that an octopus’ arms are capable of movement long after they’re detached from the body, they took some amputated arms and let them writhe around. No matter what, the suckers were incapable of attaching to the skin. They found that only when the arms had the skin remove did suction and attachment take place. This indicates that the process is likely chemical as opposed to neurological.

Oddly enough, the chemical process does appear to have a neurological override: If an octopus sees the arms of another (attached or not) as food, the chemical secretions don’t seem to matter – the octopus can grab another octopus’ arms by choice.

“We were entirely surprised by the brilliant and simple solution of the octopus to this potentially very complicated problem,” wrote the researchers.

The most pressing mystery in the scientific universe has at last been solved.