{"id":245070,"date":"2026-10-08T17:10:41","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T22:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/to-mate-or-predate"},"modified":"2026-10-08T17:10:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T22:10:41","slug":"to-mate-or-predate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/to-mate-or-predate","title":{"rendered":"To mate or predate?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/to-mate-or-predate2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The specialized arm that male octopuses use for mating is also a sensory organ that can detect the ovarian hormone progesterone, according to a recent <i>Science<\/i> study.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers say the dual-purpose organ offers an example of how sensory adaptations may shape reproductive behavior in ways that can contribute to speciation.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Octopuses use the same system for sensing food or a mate, which has implications for speciation.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.aeg4381#con\"> Anna Di Cosmo<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.aeg4381#tab-contributors\">Authors Info &amp; Affiliations<\/a><\/p>\n<p><i>Science<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Vol 392, Issue 6793<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/to-mate-or-predate\">Continue reading \u201cTo mate or predate?\u201d | &gt;<\/a><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The specialized arm that male octopuses use for mating is also a sensory organ that can detect the ovarian hormone progesterone, according to a recent Science study. The researchers say the dual-purpose organ offers an example of how sensory adaptations may shape reproductive behavior in ways that can contribute to speciation. Octopuses use the same [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1506],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}