Giant Pacific Octopus mating?

[Tubesnout23]

Last weekend I also saw two GPOs out from their dens at Cove 2. They were facing each other but separated by a pile of rocks/ concrete slab. It looked like that their arms where digging a hole underneath this structure. I don't think they were two males or a male that did not like a female because they were not aggressive. I don't think they were feeding either. Their eyes were closed and they stayed in that position for at least two hours. So I figured that they were mating. Is that possible?
I took pictures but not a wide angle shot to include the two animals together. I did not have enough light because one of my strobes died during the dive. I have attached a sketch.

[Dusty2]

From my understanding GPO's mate rather quickly. The male uses a special organ on one of his tentacles to pass a sperm packet to the female who stores it for future use. The female can store the sperm for and extended period of time before actually using it to fertilize her eggs. Not what we would class as a romantic encounter.

[UnderwaterEncounters]

I think I saw the same two Octopus as you. It wasn't apparent to me that they had dug a hole. I was surprised how close they were to each other, but didn't witness them interacting with each other.

[Grateful Diver]

I took some pics of a couple of mating GPO's once ... can't really tell who's doing what, though ...





... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Jeff Pack]

Octo Porn, good stuff!

[Tubesnout23]

From my understanding GPO's mate rather quickly. The male uses a special organ on one of his tentacles to pass a sperm packet to the female who stores it for future use. The female can store the sperm for and extended period of time before actually using it to fertilize her eggs. Not what we would class as a romantic encounter.

From what I have read so far they actually spend more than 2 hours in doing it and they have two ways: 1) normal mount (shown in Bob's pictures); 2) the male extends its special arm into the female's den. I guess what I saw may have been a variation of #2 if they were mating...But what else would have been doing for such a long period of time and still being both alive? Playing cards?

http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/Octopusmaiting.php

[Greg Jensen]

The few observed matings of GPO's have averaged 245 minutes (4 hrs). I've only come across it once so far, two large ones out in the open in the daytime. Unfortunately I was set up for macro and couldn't get good images of the scene. The female had her eyes closed and started trying to crawl away, and the male wouldn't let go-- as her skin stretched and stretched, it looked like she was going to be pulled in half. She blew a piece of spermatophore out of her siphon, and at times a couple were visible underneath them.

The white things in the second photo are spermatophores, which can be over a meter long in this species.

[dtodd]

A few months back I came across an octo denned in Cove 2 and shot this picture of what, based on Greg's comment in this thread, I now believe to be a spermatophore being blown out of the siphon. Does anyone know how long the females hold on to the spermatophore before ejecting it or just what is going down there? Calling Roland Anderson, are you out there?

[eliseaboo]

They can store them for at least five months - PTMSC has had two red octopus come in early in the spring, and lay viable eggs in the late summer. If octopus are mating now, then it's certainly possible they store them even longer!

[Tubesnout23]

Bob and Jensen: do you remember at which depth you saw those octopuses?

James Cosgrove , one of the authors of the book Super Suckers ( wrote me that he had seen mating occurring at depths below 40 ft. The ones I saw were at a shallower depth. He suggested that instead of being one female and male, they were both males besieging a female's den. I could not see anything underneath the pile of rocks because the octopuses' bodies were leaning against it. However, according to him, this is the time of the year were mating happens more often...Ma!

[Grateful Diver]

The couple I photographed were at Flagpole ... at a depth of close to 100 fsw ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Greg Jensen]

The ones I saw were at 30 ft., by the Warren Avenue Bridge in Bremerton.

[Tubesnout23]

The few observed matings of GPO's have averaged 245 minutes (4 hrs). I've only come across it once so far, two large ones out in the open in the daytime. Unfortunately I was set up for macro and couldn't get good images of the scene. The female had her eyes closed and started trying to crawl away, and the male wouldn't let go-- as her skin stretched and stretched, it looked like she was going to be pulled in half. She blew a piece of spermatophore out of her siphon, and at times a couple were visible underneath them.

octo mating 2.jpg[attachment=1]octo mating 2.jpg

The white things in the second photo are spermatophores, which can be over a meter long in this species.

Auch! That sounds painful...I have read on a web page, whose link I posted earlier on, that the female can get nervous when photographers get close to take pictures and tries to pull away. The octopuses that I saw couldn't care less. My buddy Sam told me that one of them stopped breathing for a while. Apparently it's a sign of the male passing the spermatophore to the female, according to a web page that he read. I didn't notice anything, I guess I was too busy taking pictures.

It's interesting to read that Bob saw his octopuses at 100ft while you saw them at 30ft. I wonder what James Cosgrove may think of it. I will invite him to join the conversation !

[Joshua Smith]

The few observed matings of GPO's have averaged 245 minutes (4 hrs). I've only come across it once so far, two large ones out in the open in the daytime. Unfortunately I was set up for macro and couldn't get good images of the scene. The female had her eyes closed and started trying to crawl away, and the male wouldn't let go-- as her skin stretched and stretched, it looked like she was going to be pulled in half. She blew a piece of spermatophore out of her siphon, and at times a couple were visible underneath them.

That sounds reasonably accurate, based on my own feeble attempts at procreation. Except for the 4 hour run time.

[Joyce_M]

Interesting discussion. The fact that this is the time of year GPO's tend to mate may answer some of the strange behavior I've been seeing the last couple of months. Seems like there have been a lot of cranky GPOs grabbing people lately. Been kind of wondering if it has to do with their temperament around mating time. I've personally been involved in two cases (one totally unprovoked) and I know of at least 4 other people who have had similar experiences.

To the point of catching them in the act of mating, I pretty sure I have some photos that show exactly that. At the end of a recent dive at Day Island Fritz and I came across two large GPO's interacting with each other underneath and beside a large boulder. We were on the shelf at about 40'. I only saw one GPO to start with and took a couple of photos. Both photos show a tentacle in the GPO's gill. I soon saw there was another GPO. They were very actively involved with each other. At first we thought it might be two males fighting for a home because they were so active. I believe I've seen mating before but the pair were always really quite. But the tentacle in the gills slot convinced us otherwise.

We watched and I took photos for several minutes until the male decided to leave the boulder and came past us. I followed taking closer shots. At one point it turned and came directly toward me. I slipped to the side and took a really close shot of its head just before it leaped onto me! (OK, I might have deserved it) It wrapped tentacles around my right arm and others over my head. Though this was exciting, I only had 500lb of air left so I didn't have time to see how the GPO would decide to resolve the situation. Fortunately Fritz realized this too and helped me to shake him loose.

Here are some of the photos I took of the event. Notice the tentacle in the gill slit in the first two shots:

https://picasaweb.google.com/1097066623 ... 2377966194

[spatman]

The few observed matings of GPO's have averaged 245 minutes (4 hrs). I've only come across it once so far, two large ones out in the open in the daytime. Unfortunately I was set up for macro and couldn't get good images of the scene. The female had her eyes closed and started trying to crawl away, and the male wouldn't let go-- as her skin stretched and stretched, it looked like she was going to be pulled in half. She blew a piece of spermatophore out of her siphon, and at times a couple were visible underneath them.

That sounds reasonably accurate, based on my own feeble attempts at procreation. Except for the 4 hour run time.

Haha, awesome!

Sorry, carry on.

[edofleini]

Some very interesting observations and photos in this chain of comments. I have been studying the reproduction of the GPO for the past 20 years or so. All my observations have been done in the wild so I have not had the opportunity to document a mating from beginning to end. Those observations have come from the aquarium folks that have GPO's in captivity. There appears to be a general agreement that mating takes about 4 hours.

I have had the opportunity to see bits and pieces of matings and I have documented some of those along with observations from three other authors.

One of the behaviours I have seen is a strange one until you understand what is happening. I have seen large male GPO's standing atop a large rock with all their arms spread out like the ribs of an umbrella. The octopus is positioned so that the current is hitting directly on the suckers and the octopus can be seen to slowly turn from side to side in the current.

The male is tasting the water with his suckers and in particular he is tasting for a chemical that is produced by a female who is ready to mate. I should say, at this point, that I has not been proven that female GPO's produce pheromones but most of us are convinced it is true. Anybody want a M.Sc. project?

Once the male detects the female and decides in what direction the pheromone is strongest he move up current and repeats the sensing action until he locates the female.

Much is not understood about what happens once the female is located.

I have found as many as 9 large males in an area less that 500 sq. ft. with a female underneath a large rock. There was no obvious conflict between the males and this by itself was most unusual as seldom will large animals remain in close proximity like this. Four hours later there were still a number of males around the den and one was right at the entrance to the den with his 3rd right arm ( the one he uses to pass the spermatophore) inside the den but I could not see if it was in the females mantle cavity.

Question? Did the female select the male? If so, how did she choose? Did she mate with just one? Several? All? Did the males somehow sort out who was going first?

We don't know the answers to all of this but some of it I am in the process of sorting out. I have collected tissue samples from female GPO's who have died after their eggs hatched and I have collected eggs from each of those females. We will be able to obtain the female genotype and then look at what male contributions are in the eggs. That will give us some hints as to how many males mate with each female but it certainly will not answer all the questions.

Still lots to learn and conversations like this really do help us to understand what we are seeing.

As an aside, several writers have hit on a real hobbyhorse of mine. Octopuses do not have tentacles. Only squids and cuttlefishes have tentacles. Octopuses are octopods and they have only 8 arms or legs. Most squids and cuttlefishes are decapods. They have 10 appendages of which 8 are arms and 2 are tentacles.

Jim Cosgrove
Co-author of SUPER SUCKERS - The Giant Pacific Octopus and other Cephalopods of the North Pacific.

[Joshua Smith]

Some very interesting observations and photos in this chain of comments. I have been studying the reproduction of the GPO for the past 20 years or so. All my observations have been done in the wild so I have not had the opportunity to document a mating from beginning to end. Those observations have come from the aquarium folks that have GPO's in captivity. There appears to be a general agreement that mating takes about 4 hours.

I have had the opportunity to see bits and pieces of matings and I have documented some of those along with observations from three other authors.

One of the behaviours I have seen is a strange one until you understand what is happening. I have seen large male GPO's standing atop a large rock with all their arms spread out like the ribs of an umbrella. The octopus is positioned so that the current is hitting directly on the suckers and the octopus can be seen to slowly turn from side to side in the current.

The male is tasting the water with his suckers and in particular he is tasting for a chemical that is produced by a female who is ready to mate. I should say, at this point, that I has not been proven that female GPO's produce pheromones but most of us are convinced it is true. Anybody want a M.Sc. project?

Once the male detects the female and decides in what direction the pheromone is strongest he move up current and repeats the sensing action until he locates the female.

Much is not understood about what happens once the female is located.

I have found as many as 9 large males in an area less that 500 sq. ft. with a female underneath a large rock. There was no obvious conflict between the males and this by itself was most unusual as seldom will large animals remain in close proximity like this. Four hours later there were still a number of males around the den and one was right at the entrance to the den with his 3rd right arm ( the one he uses to pass the spermatophore) inside the den but I could not see if it was in the females mantle cavity.

Question? Did the female select the male? If so, how did she choose? Did she mate with just one? Several? All? Did the males somehow sort out who was going first?

We don't know the answers to all of this but some of it I am in the process of sorting out. I have collected tissue samples from female GPO's who have died after their eggs hatched and I have collected eggs from each of those females. We will be able to obtain the female genotype and then look at what male contributions are in the eggs. That will give us some hints as to how many males mate with each female but it certainly will not answer all the questions.

Still lots to learn and conversations like this really do help us to understand what we are seeing.

As an aside, several writers have hit on a real hobbyhorse of mine. Octopuses do not have tentacles. Only squids and cuttlefishes have tentacles. Octopuses are octopods and they have only 8 arms or legs. Most squids and cuttlefishes are decapods. They have 10 appendages of which 8 are arms and 2 are tentacles.

Jim Cosgrove
Co-author of SUPER SUCKERS - The Giant Pacific Octopus and other Cephalopods of the North Pacific.

Fantastic post. Thanks for writing it.

[Jan K]

Fantastic post. Thanks for writing it.

+1

[Tom Nic]

Fantastic post. Thanks for writing it.

+1

Yes!!! Thank you!

[Grateful Diver]

As an aside, several writers have hit on a real hobbyhorse of mine. Octopuses do not have tentacles. Only squids and cuttlefishes have tentacles. Octopuses are octopods and they have only 8 arms or legs. Most squids and cuttlefishes are decapods. They have 10 appendages of which 8 are arms and 2 are tentacles.

I've seen people post that an octopus has 8 testicles ... well, that would explain the 4 hours, I suppose ...

... Bob (Grateful DIver)

[Joshua Smith]

As an aside, several writers have hit on a real hobbyhorse of mine. Octopuses do not have tentacles. Only squids and cuttlefishes have tentacles. Octopuses are octopods and they have only 8 arms or legs. Most squids and cuttlefishes are decapods. They have 10 appendages of which 8 are arms and 2 are tentacles.

I've seen people post that an octopus has 8 testicles ... well, that would explain the 4 hours, I suppose ...

... Bob (Grateful DIver)

Well, sometimes people feel like they can't breath on decent. Which can defiantly be scarry.

[spatman]

We're treading into hijack territory... Don't want to make Janna mad...

[Joshua Smith]

We're treading into hijack territory... Don't want to make Janna mad...

Oops. My bad. Forgot the whole section was NHZ.

[edofleini]

The few observed matings of GPO's have averaged 245 minutes (4 hrs). I've only come across it once so far, two large ones out in the open in the daytime. Unfortunately I was set up for macro and couldn't get good images of the scene. The female had her eyes closed and started trying to crawl away, and the male wouldn't let go-- as her skin stretched and stretched, it looked like she was going to be pulled in half. She blew a piece of spermatophore out of her siphon, and at times a couple were visible underneath them.

octo mating 2.jpg[attachment=1]octo mating 2.jpg

The white things in the second photo are spermatophores, which can be over a meter long in this species.

Very rare photos Greg! I have shots of matings but have never got a shot of the spermatophore.