Feminism: chat
Female octopuses and male harassment (lighthearted)
nettie434 · 16/09/2021 16:12
I saw this report of a study about octopuses on Twitter. Apparently female octopuses throw silt, shells and rocks at male octopuses when they don't appreciate male octopuses attempts at courtship!
twitter.com/weatherindia/status/1438452494275948544?s=21
I knew octopuses are meant to be quite clever but I did not realise that they could do this.
(Please don't tell me the plural of octopus is octopi. That's not correct as the word is Greek, not Latin, in origin so if we were being pedantic it would be octopodes. As we're not, octopus follows the usual rules for plurals in English
ErrolTheDragon · 16/09/2021 23:21
Jet propelled projectiles.... her 'no' means no!
Some female squid may use a more subtle approach to repel unwanted advances
www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/for-diguise-female-squid-turn-on-fake-testes
But male cuttlefish are the rather literal embodiment of duplicity:
www.livescience.com/21374-cuttlefish-gender-bending-disguise.html
WhereYouLeftIt · 20/09/2021 14:24
"[themaleoctopuses] remained courteous throughout, however, as no instances of males retaliating by tossing things back at the females were observed."
Or maybe because they knew there'd definitely be no shag if they did? Or they can't throw for toffee? Or does 'courteous' mean they were still trying to court the female rather than they were just being polite?
I can but hope that octopuses will not be too affected by climate change, we do need an intelligent species to take over the planet when we wipe ourselves out
.
CandyLeBonBon · 20/09/2021 14:44
@WhereYouLeftIt
Or maybe because they knew there'd definitely be no shag if they did? Or they can't throw for toffee? Or does 'courteous' mean they were still trying to court the female rather than they were just being polite?
I can but hope that octopuses will not be too affected by climate change, we do need an intelligent species to take over the planet when we wipe ourselves out
.There's probably a male octopus sub-Reddit somewhere where rejected octopuses are all complaining about being put in the 'friend zone'
Doomscrolling · 20/09/2021 17:18
Octopuses are miracles. The more we learn about them the more amazing we discover them to be.
To reproduce they have to turn their digestive tract off, so they slowly starve to death and can't live to see the next generation. So nothing is taught, each animal works it out for itself. Just extraordinary.
Kotatsu · 21/09/2021 11:02
To reproduce they have to turn their digestive tract off, so they slowly starve to death and can't live to see the next generation. So nothing is taught, each animal works it out for itself. Just extraordinary.
Christ, if they ever work a way around that we're definitely screwed.
CandyLeBonBon · 24/09/2021 07:05
@Doomscrolling
To reproduce they have to turn their digestive tract off, so they slowly starve to death and can't live to see the next generation. So nothing is taught, each animal works it out for itself. Just extraordinary.
Yeah. When I hear about that, it made me so sad!!
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