Some male octopuses tend to get eaten by their sexual partners, but male blue-lined octopuses avoid this fate with help from one of nature’s most potent venoms ...

"Mating ended when the females regained control of their arms and pushed the males off," the researchers noted.

Dr Bryan Fry from the Department of Biochemistry at the Bio21 Institute, University of Melbourne, revealed that while the blue-ringed octopus species remain the only group that are dangerous to ...

When the octopus is scared or hungry ... these findings strongly suggest the co-option of the venom for mating in this species,” researchers said. “It also suggests a co-evolutionary arms ...

Other species of octopus have evolved to have longer mating ... about the same size as a golf ball — are known to be one of the most dangerous animals in the sea because of the venom.

While the bite from a venomous blue-lined octopus (Hapalochlaena fasciata ... Sexual cannibalism is documented across a wide range of species, particularly in many mantises and spiders.

But while other octopus species have evolved longer mating arms ... discovering that the males had larger venom glands than females despite their smaller size. Next up, he plans to investigate ...

The male octopus of this species precisely injects a dose of its deadly tetrodotoxin venom into the females to immobilise them during copulation, say researchers at the University of Queensland.