If you think female African elephants have it tough with their 22-month gestation period, spare a thought for the deep-sea octopus Graneledone boreopacifica.
Researchers from California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute used a remotely operated vehicle to spy on an adult female as she brooded her hoard of 160 eggs on a rocky ledge 1,400m down in the northern Pacific. In the years that followed, the vehicle returned to that location 18 times and found the same female – identified by her distinctive scars – in the same spot, with her arms wrapped protectively around her developing eggs.
As the brood grew stronger, the mother grew weaker until, on the final visit, the fully developed larvae had dispersed and the dead female had floated into the abyss. Her marathon brood lasted four and a half years, making it the longest brooding period or ‘pregnancy’ of any known animal.
Image © NOAA/MBARI, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
