Friday Cephalopod: Twenty appendages at once

But what does it use them all for?

Deborah, it's not *IT* it's them. Use your imagination ;-)

Crimminy, I meant to say THEY not them. Where's my coffee?!

While researching these fine specimens (especially curious about the morphological implications of the title) I came across this sad fact:

"Like other cephalopods, the Caribbean Reef Squid, is semelparous, dying after reproducing."

What a shame.

(Of course most of you may have known this - but why didn't anyone tell me!)

Deborah, it's not *IT* it's them. Use your imagination ;-)

Gulp... I don't think I want to.

Like other cephalopods, the Caribbean Reef Squid, is semelparous, dying after reproducing.

Yet another reason to stretch foreplay out as long as possible!

As an upstanding Christian, I am appalled at such promiscuous fornication.

I knew that female cephalopods were semelparous, because they stop feeding around the time of breeding, and (my understanding is) they just starve to death as their offspring mature to the point they can survive. Pelagic squids might do it a little differently.

Anyway, for benthic octopuses at least, I thought it was unknown how long males live, and whether they can mate multiple times over a period of, say, years.

Caucasian Jesus, are you kidding? This isn't promiscuous at all, it's for reproduction only, and hey, it has to be because it's the only chance they get!
If only we could convince teenagers that it was true for them as well, then we wouldn't have to rely on scaring them with AIDS and denying them access to condoms and HPV vaccines!

This seems like the best thread to go off topic in (well, more than usual).

You can't prove that! It's only a theory.

Fry: So you have to choose between life without sex and a hideous, gruesome death?
Dr. Zoidberg: Yes.
Fry: Man, tough call.