'Male' Octopus Hatches 10,000 Teensy Babies in Surprise Birth

[Judi Lynn]

By Brandon Specktor, Senior Writer | November 5, 2018 12:37pm ET

Sit back, clear your mind, and let this imagery sink in: "buckets and buckets and buckets full of tiny octopi."

That's what Devin Dumont — curator of the UGA Marine Education Center and Aquarium in Savannah, Georgia — said he found when he showed up to work last Tuesday, according to an interview with local news site Savannah Morning News.

"I noticed this cloud of moving dots and I realized, 'Oh my God... There are babies. There are babies everywhere,'" Dumont told Savannah Morning News. "I immediately started scooping them out and putting them in buckets."

Octavius, the aquarium's sole octopus resident, had apparently given birth to a brood of tens of thousands of tiny, confetti-size babies overnight. When Dumont found the brood swirling like a blizzard in Octavius' tank, he was surprised for a few reasons. [Photos: Ghostly Dumbo Octopus Dances In the Deep Sea]

For starters, nobody at the aquarium knew Octavius was pregnant. The full-grown female Octopus vulgaris had been donated to the Marine Education Center on Aug. 8 by the South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston, and had been living alone in her tank for more than two months, according to Savannah Morning News.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/64013-male-octopus-surprise-babies.html

[exboyfil]

1. Science fiction stories often talk about the

different approaches to procreation. You have the mammal approach of small numbers of babies (in the extreme case of primates usually one) and other approaches like this one - thousands and thousands of babies.

Which begs the question when you consider the intelligence of an octopus. What happens if they reached the level of intelligence to give them an evolutionary advantage like humans. Could they ever get to that point without the hardware nurturing aspect of humans? They are remarkable example of evolution - probably the most sophisticated Mollusca on the planet.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. Actually, that will depend on just how the octopus brain is configured.

I recently read the book I, Mammal by Liam Drew and the mammalian brain is a significant advance on the reptilian brain with a vastly larger frontal cortex, which is crucial in making all of us mammals as smart as we are.

I know almost nothing about octupuses, although I do know they are quite intelligent, even if their intelligence is very different from ours. I do think that studying creatures like them can get us to think long and hard about just how alien alien intelligent life would be.

[littlemissmartypants]

3. A bitter sweet tale. Thanks for sharing, Judi Lynn. eom

[Judi Lynn]

4. It really did have a downer part to it, for sure. Not so hot. Thank you, littlemissmartypants. n/t