Now, see, science journalism really is picking up today; here's a fascinating article on the sex practices of giant squid. Several specimens of Architeuthis have washed up on a beach in Spain, and some of the males had been inseminated…multiple times. How does that happen?

"Although mating has never been observed in giant squid, it is thought that what happens is that the male injects his sperm packages into the female's arms. The process is likely to be a fairly violent affair as the female is probably not that keen on being injected. This is a problem for the amorous male as females are normally a third bigger than they are.

"But males get round their inferior size by being endowed with a particularly long penis, which means they can inject the female without having to get too close to her chomping beak. The male's sexual organ is actually a bit like a high-pressure fire hose and is normally nearly as long as his body - excluding legs and head.

"But having such a big penis does have one drawback: it seems that co-ordinating eight legs, two feeding tentacles and a huge penis, whilst fending off an irate female, is a bit too much to ask, and one of the two males stranded on the Spanish coast had accidentally injected himself with sperm packages in the legs and body. And this does not seem to have been an isolated incident since two of the eight males that had stranded in the north-east Atlantic before had also accidentally inseminated themselves.

"It is also possible that the sperm packages had come from other males that they had 'bumped' into, in the dark depths of the ocean. However, the sperm packages ended up in the squid - it is just another part of the mysterious lives of these creatures of the deep sea."

Just imagine it—great pelagic orgies, the males thrusting wantonly with their massive penile arms, promiscuously inseminating any nearby slickly molluscan body. Perhaps they end up sated and exhausted from their frenzied exertions and, oblivious and insensate, drift ashore to die content.

Forget March of the Penguins. There's a great documentary waiting to be made here: Squid Gone Wild. Cephalopod Sex Party. I want to see Michael Medved review it.

ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn…ooh la la.
I think that might be his "oh" face.

(I got this from Norwegianity. What's a nice Norwegian bachelor doing reading this stuff?)