Sexual dimorphism

O

Orleander

OH JOY!!!!
Valued Senior Member
I was reading about a boy that caught a blanket octopus. They instantly knew it was a female because it was 6 ft long. Males are only about an inch long. WTHell!! That's a HUGE difference. Proportionality, is this the largest??

blanket-octopus.jpg
 
I have felt that way with some women (lol).

Yes I'm wide open here, lay on Ms Duffs and woe to he that cries hold enough...
 
That business about the angler fish is really fascinating. The male (and sometimes more than one) actually is absorbed into the female until the result is a hermaphrodite, capable of fertilizing it's own eggs.

"Parasitic" chimerism in anglerfish

Chimerism occurs naturally in adult Ceratioid anglerfish and is in fact a natural and essential part of their life cycle. Once a male is born, it begins its search for a female. Using strong olfactory glands, the male searches until it locates a female anglerfish. The male then bites the female and digests the tissue around the bite. While this attachment has become necessary for the male's survival, it will eventually consume him, as both anglerfish fuse into a single hermaphroditic individual. Sometimes in this odd ritual, more than one male will attach to a single female as a 'parasite'. They will both be consumed into the body of the larger female angler. Once fused to a female, the males will reach sexual maturity, developing large testicles as their other organs atrophy. This process allows for sperm to be in constant supply when the female produces an egg, so that the chimeric fish is able to have a greater number of offspring.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics)
 
Enmos said:
If you do the math you'll see it's not.
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Blanket Octopus
Females may grow to over 2 metres in length whereas the tiny males are at most a few centimeters long.


Angler fish
Its length is approximately 30 cm for females and 3 cm for males.

Octopus wins!!!! (if I figured the metrics right. I should have paid more attention in elementary school) :D
 
Orleander said:
Blanket Octopus
Females may grow to over 2 metres in length whereas the tiny males are at most a few centimeters long.


Angler fish
Its length is approximately 30 cm for females and 3 cm for males.

Octopus wins!!!! (if I figured the metrics right. I should have paid more attention in elementary school) :D
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From those figures, A+ for you then ;)
I was, wrongly, taking the sizes in your OP as the maximum sizes.
However, according to the article Spidergoat linked to, Krøyer's Deep Sea Angler Fish females grow to about 1.2 m while the males are a maximum of 1.3 cm while attached. This means the the males are roughly 1% of the length of the females.
So now it depends on how long "a few centimeters long" actually is for the Blanket Octopus. Do you have a link?
 
I love this part. Kinda like a ninja octopus using nunchucks.

Rather than using their strength or defences to fight predators, they grab pieces of tentacles from the poisonous Portuguese man-of-war jellyfish and brandish them as weapons.
 
Orleander said:
I love this part. Kinda like a ninja octopus using nunchucks.

Rather than using their strength or defences to fight predators, they grab pieces of tentacles from the poisonous Portuguese man-of-war jellyfish and brandish them as weapons.
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Lol yeah. Pretty awesome, isn't it? They must be immune.
I wonder what they do when there's no Portuguese man-of-war jellyfish around..
 
LOL. Maybe they go through the motions and pretend. Wave little pieces of seaweed around hoping the other guy is near sighted
 
Oysters will go through serial hermaphroditism: one year they're one thing, one year another.
 
Enmos said:
According to this article you are right:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3305183/The-odd-couple.html

I'm inclined to agree as well, even though it must be very close (both are around 1% of female length). In the case of the Angler Fish, though, the length of the attached male is used while it's significantly larger when not attached.
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Krøyer's Deep Sea Angler Fish wins by a narrow margin if I assume the female Blanket Octopus is at around 2.1m and the male is around 2.5 cm in length, while the male Angler Fish is attached that is. :D
 
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