낙지 (Octopus minor)의 산란과 부화

Spawning and Hatching of Octopus minor

We investigated the reproductive behavior of Octopus minor, order Octopoda, class Cephalopoda under laboratory conditions. Each mature female octopus was kept in an aquarium with a plastic tube for shelter, and one mature male was introduced for the purpose of copulation. Before spawning, the female coated the roof of the shelter with a light-green material, upon which it then fixed its eggs one by one. This spawning behavior lasted 1 to 3 days. Fertilized females spawned 54 eggs on average, ranging from 21 to 112 eggs at 72 to 98 days after copulation. The attached eggs were 18.1-19.0 mm in length, 5.0-6.1 mm in width, and 0.30-0.38 g in weight. The mother octopods did not feed; they attended to the eggs by using their arms to rub the egg surfaces and used their funnel to blow sediments off of the eggs. At water temperatures of $20.9-21.5^{\circ}C$, the fertilized eggs hatched within 73 to 90 days after being spawned. The effective cumulative water temperature was $1,569-1,892^{\circ}C$. At the end of incubation, the body weight of the mother octopods was reduced to approximately 56% of the initial weight, and most mother octopods died soon after the young hatched.