Posted on 04/17/2008 8:00:14 AM PDT by SmithL
Octopus sex is simple, dull and quick - at least that's what scientists used to think. Instead, it turns out to be complex, sophisticated and rife with petty rivalries.
In the most detailed research ever conducted on this topic in the wild, UC Berkeley biologists focused on the mating behavior of the Abdopus aculeatus, one of more than 300 species of octopus. They were stunned at what they learned.
"The main surprise was the fact we had this idea that they were completely solitary, with interactions few and far between," said Christine Huffard, lead author on a study recently published in Marine Biology, a science journal. "But they interacted so much more than we ever expected."
She discovered that the males were very picky and discriminating, that the females would have sex with just about anybody, and that male competition for females tended to be violent and frequent.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The researchers also observed males selecting their mates.
“Males prefer large females,” Caldwell said. “If you're going to invest in guarding, you want to get the most bang for your buck.”
The large females were preferred because they produced more eggs.
“It was very common to have a very large male next to a large female,” Huffard said. “He could give her his sperm without leaving his den, and she didn't leave hers. Nobody has to give up their apartment.”
There are a few jokes in there.
I do my best to never think about octopus sex.
It's like a Kennedy family reunion: full of numerous and insufferable pricks.
Or a DNC rally.
Not only that! But the male leaves behind a waxy secretion that forms a “vaginal plug” ensuring that the next male (if there is one) is going to have an even harder time trying to mate.
That movie poster always cracked me up.
Looks like his legs are two and a half times the length of his torso.
The honest truth is, that until this very moment, octopus sex is something that I have NEVER thought about, let alone whether or not it is or is not "complex".
Who writes these headlines?
Male porcupines may give vent to the occasional scream as well, but it's from frustration, not pain: the female is only sexually receptive 8-12 hours per year.Wow, the things that you learn on the internet -- I had never realized that my ex was a porcupine.
The things you can learn here at FR. :-)
Octopuses are believed to have roughly the same level of intelligence as a cat, which is quite extraordinary considering they are 200-300 million years older as a species. They have both short- and long-term memory, they learn by observation and they have remarkable problem-solving capability as well as the ability to distinguish between complex patterns and shapes. These are all characteristics which are usually only attributed to higher-order mammals. Octopuses are anything but ‘simple’.
Sorry for going off on a track here, a bit of a ‘geek’ on this.
There has to be an Eliot Spitzer joke in there somewhere.
Male Octopus: You faked with me?
Female Octopus: I faked it.
Male Octopus: That whole thing, the whole production, it was all an act?
Female Octopus: Not bad huh?
Male Octopus: What about the breathing, the panting, the moaning, the screaming?
Female Octopus: Fake, fake, fake, fake.
Only six arms?
That would make it a sextipus.
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