WATCH: The mating behavior of larger Pacific striped octopuses also turns out to be unique. Most female octopuses mate once and then die after their eggs hatch. But these females mate repeatedly with the males, usually beak to beak, and the females lay one clutch of eggs after another. Video courtesy Roy Caldwell, Richard Ross, Aradio Rodaniche, Christine Huffard
The octopuses nonchalantly sidle up next to each other, circling but not getting too close.
Then, in a sudden tangle of arms, the two larger Pacific striped octopuses go at it, bodies heaving. But the weird thing is, these amorous cephalopods are mating face to face.
“The beak-to-beak mating is just crazy nutty,” says Richard Ross, senior biologist at the Steinhart Aquarium in the California Academy of Sciences and co-author of a new study on the species.
“No one else does anything else like that.” (Also see "Fighting Octopuses Video Is First to Show How They 'Talk.'")
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