Fun Fact #3For most cephalopods, sex is a once in a lifetime event.Often the male initiates with a c

Fun Fact #3

For most cephalopods, sex is a once in a lifetime event.

Often the male initiates with a courtship display meant to woo the female. If successful, he then slips a specialized arm called the hectocotylus into the mantle of the female and deposits the sperm.

The story of how the name hectocotylus came to be is a tale of mistaken identity. In 1829, the famous naturalist George Cuvier identified an odd “organism” within the mantle of a female paper nautilus (which, to make matters even more confusing is, in fact, an octopus) and thought it was a new parasitic worm which he called the hectocotylus. Turns out, it was actually a male cephalopod arm, but the name stuck. In the paper nautilus, the hectocotylus detaches completely during sex and remains inside the female—this is what Cuvier mistook as a worm.

Photo Credit: © Brian Skerry, www.brianskerry.com

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