I've seen quite a few 'maids in my time, and I can tell you for a fact that when they reproduce, the female's chest splits open along a seam between her shell-shrouded breasts. At this point, she enters a deep trance-like state and sinks to the bottom, coming to rest gently upon a coral reef. A long tentacle-like appendage then extends from her chest cavity and waves in the tide, waiting for a suitable male to pass by.
When a male does pass by, the female's mating appendage snares him by the tale using a series of barbs along the tip of the tentacle. The male is then drawn towards the female's chest cavity. When he is near enough, the hormones released through the bleeding wounds on his tail tell the female whether or not he is in season. If he is in season, a secondary tentacle extends from the chest cavity and removes the sperm-sac from the male (these can be found behind what is commonly mistaken for ears: mermaids do not nurse and as such have no nipples; the nipple-spots are actually ear-spots.)
The sperm-sacs are then drawn back into the chest cavity and the male is held in place until he has bled to death and injected with a powerful venom into his body which dissolves his innards for easy consumption. The female does this in order to prolong her ability to remain in breeding stasis.
Once the female has successfully drawn a sperm-sac into her chest cavity, the seam closes and she is revived. A cluster of merfry have already begun growing within her. As they mature, they will consume her internal organs and eventually erupt through the weakened chest-seam, at which point they will consume the rest of her body. During the period immediately following their "birth," the merfry are extremely predacious and dangerous. When born, their arms are actually hooked, barbed appendages, not unlike the well-known praying mantis. Only as they mature do they develop attractive, human-like arms.
It is clear from the violent, predacious mating practices of these creatures why they have never been found washed upon the shore, or similar. While the maturation process occurs incredibly fast (chest-birth of merfry to maturity within two weeks) the life expectancy of your average mermaid/merman is a short two months.
edit: I hate this forum
MadCow
man bitch keep my name out chure mouth cause we finna have probl ems if you dont. . i thoug ht off you as my antie now bitch you aint even famil y.
you the one who keeps talki n hella shit bout the famil y and leavi n your kids to get fucke d by the next guy. bitch i dont even claim you as famil y. you on awhol e nothe r level hoe and fa real on every thing i love if this shit dont stop. . best belie ve you and me is finna go at it.i dont give a fuck how old you is or how big you is bitch you aint quick like me n you aint smart like me.
you sayin you on your own level but hoe you aint on mine cause you gotta get off your knees in order to be on my level bitch .
come see me n***a and we' ll settl e this shit off tops on the real.
bitch i aint playi n and nieth er is the rest of the famil y that you left for some money here and some money there .