[Breaking News]: Octopuses get erections

Am I the only person here who actually made a serious comment on this subject?

Apparently this is so out-of-character for the usually warped Tanster that no one has even bothered to acknowledge it.

So, just for the record: Yes, I am the only person here who actually made a serious comment on this subject. [See above]

Believe it or not.

:grad:

Swelling with pride,
Tani
(Dang, I just couldn't resist :mrgreen: )
 
supernick said:
whata you people in, 5th :grad: grade? all acting so ecxited 'bout this :x :x

Kat,

Actually, this is exciting in a way, jokes aside. I swear these animals get more and more interesting with each new property we discover about them. First we see Octopuses using neurotransmitters thought to occur ONLY in vertebrates... then we see that they sleep, perchance to dream... Now a vertebrate style adaptation to facilitate mating? Convergent evolution at its finest?

An instruictor of mine once told me that the ceph was the molluscan attempt at creating fishlike forms (Squids) and tetrapod-style superpredators (Octos). If that is the case here, then we may have yet to discover new behaviors and properties that relate our landlocked tetrapod selves to these beasts. That would rock. :band:

Well, night y'all!

Sushi and Sake (the good unfiltered Nigori kind)

John
 
was in our Science Library today and found that this has now been published. some interesting histology done.


Thompson, J. T., Voight, J. R. 2003. Erectile tissue in an invertebrate animal: the Octopus copulatory organ. J. Zool. Lond. v. 261 p. 101-108

The authors compared histologically the ligulae of O. bimaculoides (the erectile one!!), Graneladone pacifica and Bathypolypus bairdii. It seem that the lingula of the bimac has a similar structure to that of a mammalian penis (as compared to that of a nine banded armadillo :shock: :shock: )

J
 
joel_ang said:
Jean said:
It seem that the lingula of the bimac has a similar structure to that of a mammalian penis (as compared to that of a nine banded armadillo :shock: :shock: )

Who actually bothered to compare? :shock:

There were apparently (in the ref list!!) a couple of papers by someone called Kelly on the armadillo's er..............equipment :biggrin2: and then Thompson and Voight did the comparing!!

J
 
Jean,

Thankee-sai, and may you always follow along the path of the Beam...

See, I'm still totally sold on this convergent evolution thing. All evidence points to the idea that cephs are the butt-kicking molluscs we always thought they were...

Sushi and Sake,

John
 
That's interesting Melissa, especially the bit about the male envenoming the female. I was always told that octopus venom didn't work on each other, so they tended to strangle rather than bite :shock: Maybe it was a looooove bite :tentacle::tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle: :tentacle:

J
 

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