We know a lot about the sexy bits of male cephalopods — ask about hectocotyl arms and spermatophores sometime — but would you be surprised to learn that we don't know much at all about squid ladybits? Of course you wouldn't.
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Squid don't just make sperm: they package it up into fairly elaborate little torpedoes called spermatophores, which are either handed to the female with a specially modified arm called the hectocotyl arm, or squirted onto her with a penis. Once on the female (or a male, it really doesn't matter),…
Doesn't everyone just love cephalopods? I find them to be a fascinating example of a body plan radically different from our own, the closest thing to a truly alien large metazoan on our planet. I try to keep my eyes open for new papers on cephalopod development, but unfortunately, they are rather…
When male squid get together with their female friends, they have a couple of nuptial options: they can go ahead and use their charm to court the female, or they can just start poking her with tentacles full of sperm in mating frenzy. Now some of you guys might be thinking the latter option sounds…
I rather like this illustration I ran across in some reading. It's a bit risqué, and reminded me of some ukiyo-e…the kind of thing you don't usually expect to find in a biology journal.
This line drawing was made from a photograph of a male H. lunulata (shaded) copulating with a female. The arrow…
There was a bit more that Wald wrote:
So, squid sex reminds you of divine creation? That's a metaphor that hadn't occurred to me...
@Richard D: "Proven beyond a shadow of a doubt": Missed that proof myself, or were you referring to Pasteur?