Page 35 - 200303 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - February 2003

Love that costs a leg or two 35 Love that costs a leg or two 35 Love that costs a leg or arm, the arm is severed, and passed to the hopping, so in my mind's eye I wrap the Love that costs a leg or two female. pink light around a female figure. She two It stays there until used to fertilise gradually comes into focus. the female's eggs, which can be weeks She is a stunning woman of the By Stephen Cauchi later. French court, and she resembles greatly a Science Reporter And while the human post-orgasm figure I saw on a tarot card recently while is sometimes referred to as "the little preparing for this reporting project. But death", for the male blanket octopus the she is in a magenta dress. She is queen of term takes on literal meaning. The male all she surveys. A man is by her. He is dies, but the female carries on, free to asking for her hand in marriage, which have sex with more males. In lieu of she finds mildly amusing. She is not so notches on the bed-post, she carries a sure she will accept. I suddenly get a collection of male arms carrying sperm. terrifying feeling. I want to leave this "It's kamikaze sex, effectively," image. I want to come up for air. I want to said Dr Norman. "They've found females stop right there and think about what this with up to six male arms in the gill might mean. cavity." Steele tells me later I kept But how did it get that way? Males questioning the images that came forward A male member of the world's compete with each other to fertilise the in my own mind. I was skeptical, perhaps, most sexually unequal animal species has female, said Dr Norman. but wanting to experience something that finally been found alive. Being small allows the male to I could relate for others in writing. I only A senior curator at the Melbourne mature earlier, and allows for better self- did this so that I could share the Museum, Mark Norman, has captured protection using its tentacle segments. experience with readers. and photographed a male blanket Both the male and female species Unwilling to get too close to what octopus. are lodged with the collections at might arise, I popped out of the hypnotic Not only is the hapless male about Museum Victoria. [End] state more than once, then fell deeply 100 times smaller than the female of the back into the trance. Paranormal Pursuit: species, but it dies after having sex with Paranormal Pursuit: Later, I realized that during the her. Past-life regression stirs session I was defensive and Past-life regression stirs Dr Norman, who found a living uncomfortable that someone was talking up the present, too one on the Great Barrier Reef, said that up the present, too me into getting so close to issues in my until now the two-centimetre male had Continued from Page 32 own life. I remember that under hypnosis Continued from Page 32 only been discovered dead in trawls and I struggled, wanting to leave, yet knowing plankton nets. I am thankful when she asks me to I had a reporting project to complete, one His achievement in capturing and take a seat in the reclining chair, because in which I would share the "truth" about photographing a live one has been all I really want to do is close my eyes and past-life regression and reincarnation. documented in a recent paper for the New sleep. She tosses a throw over me. It's I realize I do not know the truth, I Zealand Journal of Marine and decorated with angels. only know the arguments on both sides. I Freshwater Research. Her voice is quiet, and I feel myself am a journalist. I am the defensive and According to the article, the male in a state that seems like a waking dream. lone pioneer woman with the gun. I am blanket octopus is, technically speaking, I am aware of my surroundings. I am the astronaut wondering how to protect "the most extreme example of sexual aware of her voice. My arms and legs feel the world. [End] size-dimorphism in a non-microscopic heavy. My eyes are closed. animal . . . such dimorphism is not seen in She questions me about various any other animal remotely as large". stages of my life, this life. I describe my In other words, as Dr Norman told childhood and then have a flash of a The Age: "There's no other critters on that "vision." I am a tiny thing standing in my scale that have such a significant crib. It is dark. I am crying and no one is difference between the male and the coming to see why. Mother comes female." eventually. She is there an instant and The two-metre female weighs at leaves. I remember feeling abandoned. least 10,000 times as much as the male, I try to question this. Why did that sometimes up to 40,000 times as much. emerge? I didn't know that bothered me. I THE ‘X’ CHRONICLES NEWSPAPER This could make the question of hadn't even remembered it, and I am not depends on position rather delicate, but as it turns out even sure it ever really happened. REL-MAR.COM it doesn't matter. Steele asks me to go back further. to get this and every edition of it’s The male, it seems, relies on its She wants me to tell her what I see. I feel publications to hundreds of thousands of arm as much as its penis to have sex. that I should tell her something, but I readers just like you! This reproductive arm, known as a don't see anything but the blackness hectocotylus, is tucked away in a white behind my own eyelids. Visit spherical pouch between its other arms. Slowly, a pinkish light emerges, www.rel-mer.com When males mate, the pouch ruptures, almost as if I had looked at a bright light the penis injects sperm into the tip of the and closed my eyes. I decide I better get Today!