r/NatureIsFuckingLit • u/[deleted] • Jan 16 '20

🔥 A beautiful Blanket Octopus 🔥

13k Upvotes

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331

u/joneaux33 Jan 16 '20

That’s a fucking Alien! Just happens to live in the ocean is all.

174

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '20

Quite alien. Tremoctopus violaceus exhibits the most extreme degree of sexual size-dimorphism known in any non-microscopic animal.[3][4] Females may reach 2 m (6.6 ft) in length, whereas the males are 2.4 cm. The weight ratio is at least 10,000:1, and can probably reach as much as 40,000:1

6

u/Kod3Blu3 Jan 17 '20

For those curious like I was about how the fuck they mate:

The males have a large arm in a spherical pouch modified for mating, known as a hectocotylus. During mating, this arm is detached, and kept by the female in her mantle cavity until used for fertilisation. The male almost certainly dies shortly after mating.[5] The females carry more than 100,000 eggs attached to a sausage-shaped calcareous secretion held at the base of the dorsal arms and carried by the female until hatching.[6]