New insights have been made into how male southern bottletail squids produce the greatest number of offspring.
The female squid eat the ejaculates of their mates, a trait never before associated with any species of cephalopod – a group including squid, octopus, cuttlefish and nautilus
The study revealed females used the nutrients to help grow her unfertilised eggs.
Male squid try to avoid this female behaviour. Smaller females were found to ingest more of the male’s ejaculate than larger females, so males target larger females.
Read more at Monash University's School of Biological Sciences