By DAVIDXANAOS
Updated: Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:51:56 UTC

While following my curiosity and delving pointlessly into the depths of the Internet, I stumbled upon the following Wikipedia article that stunned me:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus

However, reproduction is a cause of death: males can only live for a few months after mating, and females die shortly after their eggs hatch. They neglect to eat during the (roughly) one month period spent taking care of their unhatched eggs, but they do not die of starvation. Endocrine secretions from the two optic glands are the cause of genetically programmed death (and if these glands are surgically removed, the octopus may live many months beyond reproduction, until she finally starves).

What possible evolutionary benefit could there be in octopuses having a dedicated self-destruct mechanism?

I would have thought that for any practical purpose simply starving would be just fine, but no. They have explicit means to end their lives once their task has been completed.

How could such a feature evolve?

I'm really curious about possible explanations, as I can't think of any reasonable ones at the moment (and that does not happen often).

David X.

TAGGED: BIOLOGY, EVOLUTION