Male octopus injects female with venom during sex to avoid being eaten

Some male octopuses tend to get eaten by their sexual partners, but male blue-lined octopuses avoid this fate with help from one of nature’s most potent venoms A male blue-lined octopus mounts a female during mating and injects venom into her body WEN-SUNG CHUNG During mating, some male octopuses inject females with their potent venom to paralyse them – and avoid being eaten by their mates. Typically, animals use venom to kill prey or defend themselves from predators. Some species of pufferfish, for example, produce one of nature’s most potent venoms, tetrodotoxin, as a defence mechanism. Several blue-ringed octopus species use tetrodotoxin as a powerful weapon to quickly immobilise and kill their prey. Advertisement Now, in a scientific first, Wen-Sung Chung from the University of Queensland, Australia, and his colleagues have found that one of these species, the blue-lined octopus (Hapalochlaena fasciata), uses this same toxin during reproduction. Using behavioural experiments, ... Read full article.