ABSTRACT. – Octopus vulgaris (Cuvier, 1797) is an ideal animal model for studying generation and control of the movements of flexible arms. The octopus can bend its arms in all directions, vary the stiffness of its entire arm or part of it, and grasp objects by whole-arm manipulation. Movements and behavior are driven by central and peripheral control stations which are hierarchically organized. Sensory-motor integration appears to play a major role in motor control, both centrally and peripherally. Mechanical and chemical stimuli to the octopus arm may act peripherally, inducing local arm reflexes, or they may act upon the central nervous system which processes them further. Here we investigate sensory pathways in the nervous system of the octopus arm. Sensory information appears to be transmitted via different routes to the peripheral and central stations. This separation may ensure that information from effective stimuli is conserved at the periphery while also travelling to a higher central level for higher order processing. Our findings are relevant to the field of muscular-hydrostat biomechanics as they may aid our understanding of peripheral control paradigms underlying the movement of highly flexible appendages.