The little-known dark secret of the octopus has now been discovered by science

Octopus has an extremely scary reproductive habit. And the secret behind it is only discovered through recent research.

Excluding humanity, octopus is one of the most intelligent creatures on the planet, even surpassing dolphins and chimpanzees. Plus the ability to change skin color according to the environment in an ingenious manner, octopus has always been a very interesting research topic for science.

For one thing, few people know that this animal is hiding a somewhat frightening secret, related to their reproduction.

The story is that octopus has a very extreme process of birth. After laying eggs, they starve themselves and die at the time of hatching - all to protect the eggs. Their partners are also in the same fate, dying at the time of mating by being attacked and eaten by the female octopus.

In captivity, this process is even faster. Some female octopus tore themselves, or chewed on their own tentacles.

But why is it so extreme? The answer was only found by experts from the University of Chicago School of Medicine. They have identified the biological mechanism behind this story. Specifically, genetic experiments have shown that everything comes from a part like a pituitary in humans , but on the octopus's body.

Octopus after spawning will starve itself.

In fact, since 1977, biologist Jerome Wodinsky from Brandeis University (USA) has shown that removing the optic nerve of the female octopus will cause them to abandon the eggs, continue hunting, and even trying to get back together.

The pituitary gland is located just below the optic nerve, so eliminating sight is synonymous with the pituitary gland. And with this study, experts have used more modern tools to determine exactly where the signal triggers this mechanism.

"We are looking to bring octopus studies to the 21st century, " said lead researcher Z. Yan Wang.

"It's really exciting, because this is the first time we can identify the mechanism that causes octopus extreme behavior , which in my opinion is the common goal of scientific researchers. nerve".

When laying eggs, they do everything to stay in the nest, not going anywhere.

In 2015, the team successfully decoded the octopus's genome, so this time they decided to learn about their reproduction in captivity.

Basically, the female octopus when unpaired is the predatory predator. But when laying eggs, they do everything to stay in the nest, not going anywhere. After about 4 days, octopus does not eat anything, their health will also decrease.

By the 8th day, everything became more extreme. They leave the nest but not to hunt, but constantly plunge into the pool wall. Their skin is also paler because of insufficient nutrients, while the muscles are shrunk.

"It looks really horrible to observe in the laboratory. An extremely strange behavior," Wang said.

The team collected visual glands of octopus in each stage to analyze RNA. The results showed that unpaired octopuses have very high levels of neuropeptide. After that, the concentration dropped down miserably.

Neuropeptides are proteins used to communicate between neurons. At the same time, the type of gene that produces catecholamines - a type of neurotransmitter that is involved in metabolic processes - is dramatically increased. According to experts, it is possible that these two factors made the octopus no longer want to use energy to search for prey.

That is the mechanism that causes extreme reproductive behavior of octopus. So what about the goal?

In this regard, science still does not have the correct answer. But according to Wang, this may be an interesting evolutionary mechanism, to prevent the octopus itself from eating its offspring (octopus is one of those species with homophobia). And if standing in this respect, the octopus's behavior may not be as dark as we thought.

"People will find this action extreme, because we reproduce more than once in our lives. But for species that live only to circulate the genome, things become very normal."

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