"Dedication: Octopus spent nearly 4 1/2 years sitting on her eggs"

"How does she do it? That’s the question scientists are asking after observing an octopus caring for her eggs for 53 months. That’s a record gestation period, they say, for any animal species."

The octopus generally does not feed while brooding, but most don’t brood anywhere near as long.

“The principal question now remaining,” they write, (link) “is how does the mother survive for so long?”

 

via Washington Post