A steroid might be why octopuses starve themselves after mating

By Christa Lest.

A steroid hormone may be to blame for making young female octopuses waste away and die soon after laying eggs.

California two-spot octopuses are usually very active predators, but the females starve themselves while guarding their first and last clutch of eggs, until they die at about 1 year of age.

The brains of the octopuses have a pair of glands that are roughly the same size as the pituitary glands in humans and other animals. The survival of the animals' offspring was not affected by the removal of the optic glands, which was discovered more than four decades ago.

Scientists have come up with a number of explanations as to why the self-destructive phase in the life cycle of octopuses has evolved.