PZ Myers. 2005 Sep 26. Great pelagic orgies!. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/great_pelagic_orgies/>. Accessed 2008 Nov 20.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Monday, September 26, 2005

Great pelagic orgies!

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.

image
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?)

Posted by PZ Myers on 09/26 at 08:41 PM
Science • Organisms • 2 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
  1. Wait a minute - are you telling me the female told him to go fuck himself and he took it LITERALLY?
    #: Posted by  on  09/26  at  09:03 PM
  2. When you think of it the "Great Astral Designer" really does have quite an imagination. As an exercise in "objectivity" why not try to conceptualize just what sort of "sentience" would come up with some of the weirder sexual flukes of nature that have been described over the years. Obviously he/she/it is fixated on "sex" and must get his/her/its kicks by designing all sorts of kinky sex practices. Do the IDiots really want their existance bearing the imprimatur of this pervert? Of course, this is not blasphemy as the "Great Designer" is not "God" per se, just some supernatural being beyond the ken of us lowly mortals. Why, we can go ahead and curse this guy/gal/thingamajig to our hearts content. And, by the way, isn't the "Great Designer" rather pantheistic in nature and therefore anathema to a good christian? Let's teach how perverted and pagan this entity really is to all the fundies kids. In all seriousness, the "Great Designer" is ripe for ridicule. Take ID "ideas" to their logical conclusions and you'll have a field day debunking their idiocy.
    #: Posted by DA Etler  on  09/26  at  09:19 PM
  3. Or, as Richard Ellis put it, he shot himself in the foot.
    #: Posted by  on  09/26  at  09:39 PM
  4. Yes! More invertebrate porn!!!
    #: Posted by Dave Carlson  on  09/26  at  09:46 PM
  5. ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn…ooh la la.
    I think that might be his "oh" face.


    I'm starting to wonder about you PZ...
    #: Posted by  on  09/26  at  09:54 PM
  6. Pssst. ... evidence for homosexual squid?
    #: Posted by  on  09/26  at  09:59 PM
  7. As an exercise in "objectivity" why not try to conceptualize just what sort of "sentience" would come up with some of the weirder sexual flukes of nature that have been described over the years.

    Be careful or someone will think you're conceited.
    #: Posted by  on  09/26  at  10:05 PM
  8. Pssst. ... evidence for homosexual squid?
    On the same note (kind of) - I consider squid to be highly intelligent creatures.

    So, is it possible that the males display this behavior, um, because they enjoy it?
    #: Posted by  on  09/26  at  10:23 PM
  9. Does the sudden appearence of all these giant squid at this particular moment in time have anything at all to do with the so called questionable existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Could there be some kind of cosmic connention between these monsters of the deep and the FSM? Just asking. BB
    #: Posted by  on  09/26  at  10:45 PM
  10. Since Giant Squid sex has never been actually observed, all the porn is in your dirty imaginations. I bet 99% of them make sex in the missionary position, and only sinners and deviants get washed out to the shore, as some kind of ID-ordained punishment.
    #: Posted by  on  09/26  at  11:03 PM
  11. With all those tentacles, I am having trouble envisioning missionary position in squid. Can somebody draw a picture?
    #: Posted by coturnix  on  09/26  at  11:20 PM
  12. Faaantastic.
    I want some tentacles now, or else forever lacking in the bedroom, I will feel.

    "oh face," I love it....
    #: Posted by Christopher Mason  on  09/26  at  11:57 PM
  13. Coturnix, You had no trouble imagining Giant Squids abusing themselves and/or each other in an unholy calamari a la vinaigrette salad, so I wonder what's the problem?
    #: Posted by  on  09/27  at  12:40 AM
  14. This is off-topic, but I'm wondering why no one is paying any attention to the fact that the Endangered Species Act is about to be gutted?

    http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/241710_endangered22.html
    #: Posted by Alex  on  09/27  at  02:03 AM
  15. Any idea on how such a curious behavior can evolve? Especially the reluctant female. I am sure you have an explanation, but I fail to see it (I'm not yet accustomed to evolutionary reasoning...). btw, great blog!
    #: Posted by Gaijin  on  09/27  at  02:21 AM
  16. I got this from Norwegianity.
    That's an odd coincidence. My current favourite marine image site (found on a starfish search) also happens to be Norwegian. Here's one of their all too few squiddly pages:
    http://www.seawater.no/fauna/Blotdyr/akkar.htm

    Go on, PZ, email the owner/photographer:
    http://www.seawater.no/fauna/About.htm
    saying that you're a teacher and you really need more squid illustrations. :-D
    #: Posted by  on  09/27  at  02:25 AM
  17. Any idea on how such a curious behavior can evolve? Especially the reluctant female. I am sure you have an explanation, but I fail to see it (I'm not yet accustomed to evolutionary reasoning...). btw, great blog!


    This is probably a factor of sexual selection. Making babies is a highly energetically expensive process, especially for females and ensuring you get the best male for the job is the only way to go. By being so coy about allowing a male to inseminate her, she is likely selecting only for males that are big enough, aggressive enough and have sufficient energy to fight with her to end up 'winning'. Those that aren't capable of winning end up sticking themselves and failing to breed.

    This ensures the females only mate with the males who are the strongest and healthiest at the time. Sexual selection is one of the most powerful forces in evolution and is responsible for all sorts of wierd behaviours. Note that, without having seen these squid in the act myself, I'm only speculating but this seems a fairly reasonable hypothesis and would be consistent with other squid as well.
    #: Posted by Joseph ODonnell  on  09/27  at  03:25 AM
  18. This appears to be the squid equivalent of the Pretzel Hold joke. It's funny becasue it's true!
    #: Posted by Johnny Vector  on  09/27  at  05:23 AM
  19. Feh. Lots of animals show same-sex preference, heifers for example. “Cows look calm, but really they are gay nymphomaniacs...”

    And I wonder how many of the wingnut 'March of The Penguins' fans are aware of the prevalence of gay penguins? Why do penguins hate America?

    Tsk. Just goes to show that even supposedly sensible scientists are sickly fascinated with hentai smile
    #: Posted by Republic of Palau  on  09/27  at  05:48 AM
  20. Giant Squid mating behaviour may involve some kind of courtship ritual, gladiator competition, lekking or some yet unimagined behaviour. Eventually, it will be observed, filmed in Technicolor and featured on Pharyngula with a convincing evolutionary explanation. IDers will say it is "only a theory", and Alabama Courts will impose on teachers to present in class the sanitized ID version. The slippery slope argument will be used: "teaching Cephalopoda reproductive behavior may cause young people to perform bizarre acts contra natura, like self-injecting vital bodily liquids".
    #: Posted by  on  09/27  at  05:52 AM
  21. As far as heifers being gay, if 99% of all guys were castrated before puberty and then eaten as veal, most women would be gay too.

    The wrongs male humans as a group have committed against female humans as a group throughout history are partially if not wholly compensated for by the horrible fate of male farm animals. It's speciesist to say otherwise.
    #: Posted by John Emerson  on  09/27  at  07:12 AM
  22. "...had accidentally injected himself..."

    What makes them so sure that it was accidental?
    #: Posted by  on  09/27  at  08:48 AM
  23. And, in my own defense, I never paid attention to this whole Wife Aquatic mate-with-whatever-moves thing until I started reading Pharyngula.
    #: Posted by Norwegianity  on  09/27  at  09:10 AM
  24. 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.

    I'm confused. When you exclude the head and the legs, what's left on a cephalopod?
    #: Posted by  on  09/27  at  10:14 AM
  25. Mantle?
    #: Posted by  on  09/27  at  10:17 AM
  26. Just one question. How long can that penis actually be if it is as long as the body "excluding the head and the legs"? I mean this is a Cephlapod.
    #: Posted by  on  09/27  at  10:30 AM
  27. Very long? Remeber, this is a Giant Squid.
    #: Posted by  on  09/27  at  10:54 AM
  28. Jaimito,
    my post was a play on the words as in "cephalopod=head, foot"..I just found the authors choice of words amusing
    #: Posted by  on  09/27  at  01:03 PM
  29. I've been terribly remiss. In all this time, I haven't posted the link to the London (UK) society of mollusc fanciers - even though a friend/colleague had the tie and used to get the journals/newsletters:

    http://www.malacsoc.org.uk/

    One of the front page images shows a succession of different molluscs.
    #: Posted by  on  10/02  at  01:01 PM