Northwest Dive Club

Hi
So, sometimes we're seeing baby octo's with a white egg sac (presumably) between their legs. Sometimes not.

Any idea of why?

some are boys and some are girls?

I guess I assumed it was part of the yoke sac but I don't know. I did notice on some that as they made their way up in the water column the sac was discarded.
Great question hope someone in the know can answer it.

Greetings,

Caveat - I don't really know the answer to this. What follows is speculation.

For an octopus, egg laying is a very time consuming process. According to Jim Cosgrove it can take four weeks for mama octopus to lay her 60 to 80 thousand eggs. That means that egg #1 is nearly a month older than egg #80,000 yet all of the eggs typically hatch over a very short period of time. I can't find an exact reference but in Cosgrove's book it indicates that the full hatch takes less than a day and I'm pretty sure that he mentioned in a lecture (for the Feiro Center) that hatching generally takes only a few hours.

By extension, that implies the youngest eggs are significantly less developed than the oldest ones and that the youngest will not have consumed all of their yolks. If the yolk has not been consumed it remains attached after hatching until the baby octopus removes it.

One wonders if the baby octopus is in a hurry to get rid of the yolk sack since it's a hindrance to swimming or if it wants to keep it till the nutrition is gone.

Obstetrically yours,
Alex

Very fascinating Alex!