June 26th, 2019: Wet Blanket

[xoxoxoBruce]

How many octopuses, octopi, octopodes, could a Woodchuck chuck...?
Octopodes is linguistically correct, octopuses is generally accepted, but octopi is the most fun.
Screw linguists, power to the people, they can take our money, property, and civil rights, but they can’t take our... Octopi Wall Street.



But I digress...
Female Blanket Octopi direct their energy into growing, males into getting laid. The male scores and dies.
The female just moves on and kills... uh, suicide assists... er, mates repeatedly collecting the male's hectocotylus as she goes.
When she is no longer amused by her swath of corpses, she chooses one of the loads of sperm she’s been saving and fertilizes
all 100,000 of her eggs, then after they hatch she dies, probably with a flourish and drama.



Blanket Octopi are immune to the stings of the Portuguese Man-O-War, so the males and young females rip arms off the M-O-W
and use them like light sabers. The growed-up females use the blanket for defense.
So next time you go in the ocean marvel at the many things that can eat you.