Friday, June 8, 2018

What’s it like to swim into the world’s weirdest underwater orgy?

Each Southern Hemisphere winter, a natural phenomenon occurs off a remote stretch of the South Australian coast that will leave you blushing, finds Sarah Reid.

Shimmering like a hyperactive rainbow, the male cuttlefish suddenly makes his move, snaking an orangey tentacle around the female’s head and drawing it towards his own mouth. It looks like he’s about to eat her, but this mollusc has a decidedly more X-rated motive.

“The male actually squirts sperm into the female’s mouth, and she fertilizes it internally before depositing the eggs under a rock shelf,” marine educator and dive instructor Carl Charter had explained during my pre-snorkel briefing—adding that the kinky copulation sessions of Australian giant cuttlefish (Sepia apama) can last up to half an hour.

The post What’s it like to swim into the world’s weirdest underwater orgy? appeared first on Adventure.com.

No comments:

Post a Comment