While unfortunate for the males, becoming a post-sex meal offers the females vital nutrients needed to sustain themselves and their soon-to-be hundreds of gestating offspring. This practice is especially common in animals exhibiting female sexual dimorphism,

Male blue-lined octopuses inject females with venom during mating to avoid being eaten by their partners, observations suggest 1. Blue-lined octopuses (Hapalochlaena fasciata) have paralysing venom that can kill a human.

Scientists have found that male blue-lined octopuses inject venom and paralyse females during sex to avoid being killed and cannibalised by their much larger partners. The male octopus of this species precisely injects a dose of its deadly tetrodotoxin venom into the females to immobilise them during copulation,