Hectocotylus
Sign in to savethumb|160px|Georges Cuvier's original illustration of an octopus hectocotylus. Mistaking it for its own separate organism, he named it Hectocotyle octopodis.
~3 min read
Encyclopedic overview
4 sectionsContents
- Structure
- Variability
- Table of hectocotyli
- References
thumb|160px|Georges Cuvier's original illustration of an octopus hectocotylus. Mistaking it for its own separate organism, he named it Hectocotyle octopodis.
A hectocotylus (: hectocotyli) is one of the arms of male cephalopods that is specialized to store and transfer spermatophores to the female. Structurally, hectocotyli are muscular hydrostats. Depending on the species, the male may use it merely as a conduit to the female, analogously to a penis in other animals, or he may wrench it off and present it to the female.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Hectocotylus” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.