The larger Pacific striped octopus was observed hunting and mating in a truly strange manner, standing out among a strange species.
Published in the journal PLOS One, the new study detailed how the larger Pacific striped octopus mates unlike any other cephalopods relative. The octopus also has a slightly different way of going about catching prey.
Head over to Discovery News for an image gallery of these strange marine animals.
Most female octopus aggressively approaches a male for intercourse that involves little touching and then the female is typically done producing offspring, the researchers reported in a press release.
The larger Pacific striped octopus males approach the females and put themselves in danger during intercourse, which was observed lasting days, though they usually come out of it physically unharmed. The females would then reproduce multiple times.
"Personally observing and recording the incredibly unique cohabitation, hunting and mating behaviors of this fascinating octopus was beyond exciting - almost like watching cryptozoology turn into real-life zoology," study co-author Richard Ross, of the California Academy of Sciences, said in the release. "It reminds us how much we still have to learn about the mysterious world of cephalopods."
The larger Pacific striped octopus was also seen hunting uniquely too, using a single tentacle to startle its victim and positioning its body so the prey will swim right to them. Most octopus simply wrangle their prey together using all eight tentacles at once.
"I've never seen anything like it," study lead author Roy Caldwell, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, said in the release. "Octopuses typically pounce on their prey or poke around in holes until they find something. When this octopus sees a shrimp at a distance, it compresses itself and creeps up, extends an arm up and over the shrimp, touches it on the far side and either catches it or scares it into its other arms."
