Скачать или смотреть The Mating Ritual of the Pacific Red Octopus

Following a female Pacific Red Octopus as she creates a nesting den and selects a mate. Octopus are cannibalistic and the larger female will often eat her suitors after they finish mating. When ready to lay her eggs the female creates a den. Digging into the soft sand beneath a large flat rock. Once she completes this task she releases pheromone scent into the water that will attract every male within several hundred feet of her den. Confrontations between rival males are often quite civil, with the smaller suitors simply sizing up the competition before retreating. Once the female accepts the advances of a male, he will use a modified tentacle to transfer the sperm to the female. The mating event is quite perilous to the smaller males and they can count themselves lucky to get away with their lives. In the case of this event you can see that the male loses his specialized mating tentacle in the encounter and the female will use this to fertilize her eggs at her own leisure. I was very lucky to capture this entire sequence of events over a period of several hours spent on this dive in Hood Canal of Washington State.