It is now scientifically proven: female octopuses have character and do not give way. A team of Australian, American and Canadian researchers has thus demonstrated the fact that they threw shells at males who are too insistent during mating attempts.
In their study, available in preprint (before peer review) on the recognized site Biorxyv.org, the scientists explain that to reach this conclusion, they analyzed several videos, including images shot off the coast of Australia.
On these, the cephalopods “use in a coordinated way their arms and the water jets of their siphon, which has the effect of projecting materials by force through the water column, sometimes hitting other octopuses”.
Concretely, female octopuses therefore do not only use stones to ward off their male congeners. Their response is indeed so elaborate that they can also arm themselves with mud or algae.
Female octopuses throw things at males that harass them.
(Image: Morten Brekkevold; CC BY-NC-SA.) pic.twitter.com/9qIl4wPLmy
– Quite Interesting (@qikipedia) August 29, 2021
And if males can sometimes adopt this kind of behavior, it is done in much smaller proportions, proof that females know how to behave better. Moreover, in a sequence recorded in December 2016, scientists saw a single female octopus target a particularly heavy male ten times.
Males dodge but do not reply
Five of her jets hit a male who had made several attempts to mate with her. “The female’s ten throws were entirely or partially mud throws. In one case, the preparatory movements of the female included a rotation towards the male… placing him directly in the trajectory of the throw ”, write the researchers, in their publication relayed by the British daily “The Independent”.
Female octopuses throw shells at males annoying them, scientists learn https://t.co/2mtULdMZOV
– The Independent (@Independent) August 30, 2021
More astonishingly, the scientists also found that the male sometimes tried to dodge the jet, but never to retaliate. “In the first two cases, the target went down after the launch. In the last two, she stooped before the throw, during the pitcher’s preparatory movements, ”we can still read.
In other cases, scientists noticed that some male octopuses raised their arms in the direction of the launcher but did not dodge. Sometimes fish were affected instead of cephalopods, becoming collateral victims.
Throwing things is not a common behavior in animals, although some monkeys, elephants, mongooses and birds can do it. Throws have also been observed in other animal species, including the throwing of irritating hairs by spiders and archerfish, which are known to be able to throw water at long distances in order to hunt insects and other prey.