“After the female lays her clutch of eggs, she devotes herself entirely to cleaning and protecting them for months. She stops looking for food, unable to leave them even for a short time. She begins to waste away—senescence, it’s called. It’s as if she’s used up all her life force hunting, outmaneuvering predators, finding a mate, arranging her den, and then, finally, caring for her eggs. By the time they hatch, she’s starved herself to death, or nearly. Her skin, once capable of rapid changes in color and texture, goes pale and develops lesions that never heal. Her eyes go cloudy. She begins
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