26/02/2022
🐙Do you know how to find MALE or FEMALE in most octopuses and especially when male is s*xually mature?????
When the male octopus reaches s*xual maturity, it has extra large suckers placed at the level of the seventh or eighth pair on arms two and seven. in this photo you can see very well ..
Enlarged suckers have been suggested to play a visual role in mate recognition (Packard, 1961), When a large female O. vulgaris was suddenly introduced into a small male's tank, Packard reported the male's presentation of his suckers to the female as a s*xual signal. However, if the visual stimulus of enlarged suckers were required to induce females to mate, octopuses not in visual contact would not copulate, as they are known to do (Wells and Wells, 1972; Forsythe and Hanlon, 1988).
Enlarged suckers probably are important in s*x recognition, but rather than a visual role, I suggest th(:y may function primarily as chemoreceptors. Sucker disks of the octopuses contain apparent chemo-receptors (Graziadei, 1964; 1965; Graziadei and Gagne, 1976). Octopuses detect waterborne chemicals (Boyle, 1983;
1986) and display chemotaxis (Chase and Wells, 1986). Suckers of severed arms distinguish acceptable from tainted food by touch (Altman, 1971)
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