'Male' octopus suffers baby blues

"George" has now been renamed Georgina

A "male" octopus who had been suffering from a mystery illness has turned out to be a mother-to-be with morning sickness.

Keepers at Birmingham's Sea Life Centre were puzzled about why George the octopus was off his food and seemed tired and miserable.

On Monday staff at the centre discovered "he" had laid thousands of eggs in the tank.

The creature has since been renamed Georgina.

The octopus is among the most intelligent inhabitants of the oceans, with a highly-developed nervous system and the largest and most advanced brain of any invertebrate.

The creatures often lay up to a hundred thousand eggs.