- Reaction score
- 1,675
The octopuses nonchalantly sidle up next to each other, circling but not getting too close.
Then, in a sudden tangle of arms, the two larger Pacific striped octopuses go at it, bodies heaving. But the weird thing is, these amorous cephalopods are mating face to face.
“The beak-to-beak mating is just crazy nutty,” says Richard Ross, senior biologist at the Steinhart Aquarium in the California Academy of Sciences and co-author of a new study on the species.
“No one else does anything else like that.” (Also see "Fighting Octopuses Video Is First to Show How They 'Talk.'")
All other known octopus species mate either by the male mounting the female or inserting his mating arm into her from a distance.
Read more here. (National Geographic)
Then, in a sudden tangle of arms, the two larger Pacific striped octopuses go at it, bodies heaving. But the weird thing is, these amorous cephalopods are mating face to face.
“The beak-to-beak mating is just crazy nutty,” says Richard Ross, senior biologist at the Steinhart Aquarium in the California Academy of Sciences and co-author of a new study on the species.
“No one else does anything else like that.” (Also see "Fighting Octopuses Video Is First to Show How They 'Talk.'")
All other known octopus species mate either by the male mounting the female or inserting his mating arm into her from a distance.
Read more here. (National Geographic)
