Do you think your love life is crazy? Do you think you have to do a lot to attract and keep a partner? Well, you might not know about the romantic actions and strange mating behaviors of animals. These animals go through a lot to find a mate during mating season. So, be grateful that you can just buy flowers and chocolate to show your love.
So you think you can dance? No one has moves like the greater sage grouse. While showing off their fancy feathers, males take deep gulps of air to inflate yellow balloon-like sacs on their chests. This creates a whistle-and-pop sound that can be heard up to two miles away. It attracts female grouse who are searching for a mate.
Humans aren’t the only animals that worm their way into their beloved’s heart with a gift. Many males in the animal kingdom offer nutritional nuptial gifts to females. The northern shrike, or great grey shrike, hunt insects and small reptiles and mammals, like toads and mice, and impale them on sticks. Yes—a mouse-pop or toad-sicle for their would-be ladybird.
Almost all birds have sex via cloaca, an opening common to both males and females through which both fertilization and waste elimination occur. Males are usually positioned on top of females, and in the seconds it takes for their swollen cloaca to meet, he can pass sperm into her oviduct. Only 3 percent of male birds, including ducks and ostriches, actually have penises .
Like those great grey shrike, spiders are also “givers.” Many eight-legged suitors give nuptial gifts—usually a dead insect—wrapped up in the male’s own homemade silk. And this hard work seems to pay off! Female nursery web spiders will mate up to 10 times longer with a gift-giving male. But, male autumn spiders, or long-jawed orb weavers, put a twist on the routine. They sometimes kill and wrap up a rival male as an edible gift to his leggy lady friend. Sounds like a his-and-hers gift in one package!
During the season of spring, when a youthful queen bee takes flight amidst a gathering of male bees, commonly referred to as drones, the males internally declare, “I shall pursue that female bee at all costs, even if it results in my demise!” And indeed, their pursuit is ultimately fatal.
When a male bee successfully mates with a queen bee in mid-air, his reproductive organs explode, releasing his sperm and a portion of his detached phallus into the queen. This may serve as a barrier to prevent other males from entering. The drone ultimately sacrifices its life in the pursuit of love.
The process of changing sexes is a lengthy one for humans. However, numerous types of fish have the ability to switch from being male to female, or vice versa, within a matter of weeks. A prime example of this is clownfish, which are initially all born as males. These fish reside in groups where there is one dominant male and one dominant female who are responsible for breeding. In the event that the female dies or is separated from the group, the largest male undergoes a sex change and takes on the role of the breeding female.
Now that’s a fish that steps up to the plate!
Like squid, octopuses use spermatophores to deliver sperm by hand (or by arm). The male Argonaut is much smaller than the female and has a specialized arm, called a hectocotylus , in which sperm is transferred from the “penis” to the female. But, when he hands it over, the arm breaks off and he speeds away without it.
In 2012, a woman in South Korea complained of pain after eating undercooked squid. Doctors found what was causing it—the squid’s spermatophores, which were still inside the undercooked animal, had forcefully expelled sperm, essentially inseminating the inside of her mouth!
Many animals perform some sort of mating call. Engaging as they are, none are quite as wild as that of a tiny insect called the water boatman. These little fellows create their love ballads by rubbing their love organs across their ridged abdomen. The result is the loudest sound in the animal kingdom, relative to size. The water boatman is only 3/8 to 3/16 of an inch long, but its song is 99.2 decibels—as loud as a freight train you’re not too terribly far from.
If you’re trying to decide the sex of a mammal, there’s usually one surefire place to look—unless that animal is a hyena.
Female hyenas aren’t only larger and more aggressive than their male counterparts, but they have pseudo penises.
Males have to perform quite an awkward balancing act to get their actual penis into the female’s faux one. If it’s a successful mating, she’ll have to push pups through the fake phallus as well. No wonder hyenas are always laughing!
The love lives of deep-sea Anglerfish are the stuff of nightmares, particularly for the male. In the dark depths of the Atlantic and Antarctic oceans, opportunities to find Mr. Right are few and far between. That’s why females and males have to stick together once they find each other. Literally.
When they meet, the male bites into the female and begins to fuse with her , gradually disintegrating until only his reproductive organs are left. Essentially, his nutritional needs are met from absorbing part of her intake, and she has sperm at the ready to fertilize her eggs.
During an aquatic lovers’ spat, she can never say “Honey, get off my back.”
No matter how you choose to catch the eyes and heart of your own love bug, it’s safe to say that human romantic gestures aren’t as over-the-top as other species in the animal kingdom. It might be best to stick with a sweet box of chocolates or a thoughtful bouquet of flowers. But, if you’re feeling adventurous, you can take a page from the spider’s notebook and surprise your honey with chocolate-dipped crickets.
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