Reproductive behaviour
The coupling of the octopus starts with the female
who makes the ®rst advances and performs the ritual
of cleaning her sucker disks. This signals the male ®rst
to present his larger sucker disks, then to extend his
tentacles towards her in order to caress her body. At
the same time the male's eyes take a new brightness
and the rings around them darken.19 During mating, to
all appearances, they are oblivious to anything in their
vicinity, and are totally absorbed in one another.19Once mating has been completed, the female's sole
preoccupation is her future family. She lays her eggs
in clusters and goes to great length to protect them,
attaching them to a stone or reef or from the ceiling of
a chosen cave where, once anchored, she stands guard
over them until they hatch. Her whole life now centres
around these egg clusters; cleaning them, rubbing
them, touching them constantly and airing them with
jets of water from her funnel. She forti®es the
entrance of her cave by piling stones at its entrance
and guards them in a characteristic defence posture,
her eyes watching every move outside her retreat and
attacking bravely any intruder that might venture too
close. She cleans her home by blowing out debris to
the outside and she refuses to eat until her eggs have
hatched, out of cleanliness, in order not to contaminate
the cave's waters while the eggs are still vulnerable.
No one has ever seen a mother octopus leave her
eggs unattended or unprotected. Eventually, The
female dies of exhaustion, soon after the eggs have
hatched.19,20
With its eight sensitive tentacles, the male octopus
has not had a great need to evolve special organ for
the transfer of his sperm. Instead, he uses one of his
tentacles termed an hectocotylus which has a groove
running from one end to the other as a spermatophore
inserter.20) The male may mate with several females
during the season if he has the opportunity.19 On the
other hand, the female octopus is fertile only once in
her lifetime.19