Hi nanoalchemist,
Whilst I have not been able to track down the documentary for you, I
have been able to identify the species as the "paper nautilus". First,
I found this extract (referring to octopus sex without identifying the
species):
"One of his eight arms acts as a copulatory organ with sperm packets.
In some species, the male's copulatory arm breaks away from the male's
body, somehow swims through the water, finds the female and enters her
siphon"
"Instinct Magazine Online"
http://www.instinctmag.com/issues/0500/fluff.html
Next, I found a similar reference which identified the species:
"In the octopus and many cephalopods, the males have a special
tentacle with which they insert their spermatophores under the mantle
of the female. The tentacle is then retracted for future use.
The male paper nautilus is more profligate with its tentacles ... His
spermatophore-bearing tentacle detaches itself from the body and swims
-- under its own power -- to the female, being in effect a swimming
penis."
"Science Fronteirs #117, MAY-JUN 1998"
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf117/sf117p06.htm
The above article is attributed to a book review entitled "The Shell
of Aphrodite", Nature, 391:550, 1998 - but as Nature charges $18 to
view the review I was not able to determine which book is being
reviewed.
Dr Mark Norman, a senior curator at the Melbourne Museum, gave a
conference talk where he refers to the action as "crawling" rather
than swimming:
"One group that I'm fascinated by is paper nautilus, or Argonaut ...
half his body weight is a special arm in a pouch ... when he bumps
into a female he commits kamikaze sex, breaks the arm off, he dies and
the male arm crawls into the female's gill cavity. And they've found
females with up to 6 male arms inside their gill cavity."
"Psychidelic Sex"
http://www.vcc.vic.gov.au/conf2002/DrMarkNorman.pdf
There's also a reference in a popular science book:
"The paper nautilus ... the male is tiny, and hardly anyone has ever
seen him. Not even his mate. What appears to happen is that he fires
off his penis - a modified tentacle - which takes up an independent
life within the female, who may entertain several such guests at once.
This is so weird that it's not surprising early naturalists throught
the penises were parasitic worms."
"Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation" (page 209)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805063323/
A guide to Flinders Island states that "the males are tiny, about 1.5
centimetres long, they do not have webbed arms like the females but
have one very long arm which they carry in a coiled sac. The arm is
called the hectocotylus and contains the sperm. During mating this arm
breaks off inside the mantle or body of the female. When first
discovered, it was thought that this arm was a type of parasitic worm
... the author later admitted his mistake"
Paper Nautilus
http://focusonflinders.com.au/paper-nautilus.htm
The above article makes it sound like the octopus might place the
hectocotylus in the female before it breaks off - but then the mention
of a coiled sac suggests that it might spring out towards the female
when broken off.
The following article stresses that there is much we don't know about
cephalopod reproduction, but specifically mentions a "jettisoned
hectocotylus":
"Actual reproductive behaviors are mostly subject to hypothesis and
speculation in the absence of observations or evidence. It is known
that the males of some cephalopod species transfer sperm to the female
using a large organ protruding from the mantle (the penis) while
others use a modified arm (the hectocotylus). Simple sperm are stored
in packets called spermatophores, which may be placed inside the
female's mantle, hydraulically implanted into her mantle, arms, head,
or around the beak, or may be jettisoned along with the entire
hectocotylus in the female's general direction."
Deep-Sea Cephalopods: An Introduction and Overview
http://www.tonmo.com/science/public/deepseacephs.php
There is a list of over a dozen further references at the end of the above article.
I hope you found this informative. Please request clarification if it
does not sufficiently address your question.
Google Search Strategy:
octopus "reproductive organ" OR penis mate
://www.google.com/search?q=octopus+%22reproductive+organ%22+OR+penis+mate
octopus penis mate propels
://www.google.com/search?q=octopus+penis+mate+propels
octopus spermatophores mate propels
://www.google.com/search?q=octopus+spermatophores+mate+propels
"shell of aphrodite" nature
://www.google.com/search?q=%22shell+of+aphrodite%22+nature
Regards,
eiffel-ga |
