Octopus eats its own hand when giving birth
After an octopus lays eggs, it undergoes changes in the production and use of cholesterol in the body, which in turn increases the production of steroid hormones – a biochemical change.
The scientists found three distinct chemical changes that occur around the time the mother octopus lays eggs. The first is an increase in pregnenolone and progesterone, two hormones involved in reproduction in a wide range of organisms (in humans, progesterone increases during ovulation and during early pregnancy).
The mother octopus begins to make a higher block of cholesterol called 7-dehydrocholesterol, or 7-DHC. Humans also produce 7-DHC in the process of making cholesterol, but they don’t keep any in the body for long because they are toxic compounds.
In fact, infants with the genetic disorder Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome cannot eliminate 7-DHC. The result is intellectual disability, behavioral problems including self-harm, and physical abnormalities such as extra fingers and toes and cleft palate.
Eventually, the visual glands also begin to produce more components for bile acids, which are made by the liver in humans and other animals. Octopuses don’t have the same bile acids as mammals, but they seem to make the building blocks for those bile acids. It is possible that bile acid components are important for controlling the lifespan of invertebrates.
Z. Yan Wang, assistant professor of psychology and biology at the University of Washington, USA, said that if the nerves leading to the optic gland are cut, the mother octopus will drop the eggs, start eating again and start eating again. live 4 to 6 months. That’s an impressive lifespan extension for creatures that only live about a year.
According to Live Science
