Deep sea octopus mom tends her eggs longer than any animal on Earth

[n2doc]

Call it extreme parenting: Scientists announced the discovery of a deep sea octopus mom that faithfully guarded the same clutch of eggs for a record-breaking 4-1/2 years.

"This is the longest brooding or gestation of any animal on the planet," said Brad Seibel, an animal physiologist at the University of Rhode Island.

"Elephants gestate for 20 to 21 months and some deep sea sharks carry their embryos around internally for a couple of years, but nothing is longer than this."

The long brooding period represents the far end of an underwater parenting spectrum. On the opposite end lies the "broadcast spawn" strategy, when an animal releases hundreds of thousands of eggs into the water and hopes for the best. Most of those eggs and juvenilles get gobbled up by predators, but because there are so many of them, a few do make it to adulthood.

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http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-deep-sea-octopus-mom-20140729-story.html

[BlancheSplanchnik]

1. awwwwwww! what a good momma.

[shenmue]

2. Awwww

[Scuba]

3. Fascinating. We no so little about our underwater part of the planet.

[BrotherIvan]

5. We do. I do, but I keep trying to rectify it

Just viewed an octopus for the first time in the USVI and it was AMAZING.

[A Little Weird]

4. Cool!

Hard to imagine going 4.5 years without eating.