30 Strangest Animal Mating Habits – Creativity…

Saved to Dropbox • Jan 10, 2023 at 12:40 PM

Creativity Posts
Just being creative

 

30 Strangest Animal Mating

Habits
Ah, sex. Birds do it, bees do it. Wait a minute! How
exactly do they do it? !e mating rituals of some
animals are wonderfully bizarre. For example: did
Follow
you know that some insects’ genitals explode
during sex? Or that some fish can change gender?

Intrigued? Read on for 30 of the most bizarre

animal mating habits.

Honey Bee: Exploding Testicles.

!e reproductive cycle of bees is fascinating – and

complex. But here’s the short story: a queen is
selectively bred in a special “queen cell” in the hive
and fed royal jelly by worker bees to induce her to
become sexually mature.

A virgin queen that survives to adulthood without

being killed by her rivals will take a mating flight
with a dozen or so male drones (out of tens of
thousands eligible bachelors in the colony). But
don’t call these drones lucky because during
mating, their genitals explode and snap off inside
the queen!

Strange as it is, this actually makes evolutionary

sense: the snapped-off penis acts as a genital plug
to prevent other drones from fertilizing the queen.
But tell that to the dead drone whose penis just
exploded.

[Note: this strategy is so successful that it is

apparently employed by other species of animals,
such as the male wasp spider]

(Image Credit: Veebl [Flickr])

Bonobo: Make Love Not War

Bonobo, striking a pose (Image Credit: Kabirdas

[Flickr])
 

Who said that violence is the only way to solve

fights over food or territory? Instead of fighting,
bonobos [wiki] have sex! Actually, their whole
societal structure seems to revolve around sex.

Bonobos use sex as greetings, a mean of solving

disputes, making up for fights, and as a favors in
exchange for food. !ey tongue kiss, engage in oral
sex, mutual masturbations, have face-to-face
genital sex and even have a strange “penis fencing”
ritual!

In their 1996 book titled Demonic Males: Apes and the

Origins of Human Violence, Richard Wrangham and
Dale Peterson wrote:

“Chimpanzees and Bonobos both evolved from the

same ancestor that gave rise to humans, and yet
the Bonobo is one of the most peaceful,
unaggressive species of mammals living on the
earth today. !ey have evolved ways to reduce
violence that permeate their entire society. !ey
show us that the evolutionary dance of violence is
not inexorable”.

Flatworm: Make Love AND War.

Penis fencing flatworms. (Image Credit: PBS/"e
Shape of Life)
 

If bonobos “penis fence” as foreplay, flatworms do

it for real.

For flatworms, sex is more like war than love. Like

all sea slugs, flatworms are hermaphrodites (they
have both male and female sexual organs). In this
case, the male organ turns out to be two dagger-
like penises that they use to hunt as well as mate.
During mating, two flatworms fight (i.e. “penis
fence”) to stab each other, while avoiding getting
stabed.

"e “loser” who gets stabbed will absorb the sperm

through its skin and then scoots off to bear the
burden of motherhood! (Source, with a cool video
you shouldn’t miss.)

Frigatebird: Fanciful Big Red Balloon.

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]

!ose fanciful male peacocks have nothing on

frigatebirds! A male frigatebird has a throat sac
that it can inflate with hard work – it takes over a
period of twenty minutes – into a giant red, heart-
shaped balloon. He then waggles his head from
side to side, shakes his wings and calls the females
to check him out.

A female frigatebird will mate with the male with

the biggest and shiniest balloon. During sex, the
male bird will sweetly put his wings over her eyes
to make sure she doesn’t get distracted by other
males with even nicer balloons! (Source)

Red-Sided Garter Snake: An Annual

Mating Ball Orgy

Red-sided garter snake mating ball (Image Credit:

Robert Mason, professor of Zoology at the Oregon
State University, from News and Communications
Service at OSU)
 

Strange Fact 1. "e annual mating of red-sided

garter snakes is a tourist attraction in Manitoba,
Canada. "at’s because when a female garter snake
emerges from hibernation, she releases a
pheromone that attracts hundreds of male snakes
in the vicinity to rush her and create a large
squirming “mating ball.”

Strange Fact 2. Like many snakes, the male garter

snake has two penises, called “hemipenes,” on each
side of its body. "e male will try to use the best-
positioned penis to mate with the female in the
center of the mating ball.

Strange Fact 3. As if the two facts above aren’t

strange enough, turns out there is a “she-male”
snake who releases pheromones just like the
females do (and fools hundreds of other males to
pile up on him/her). Why? Scientists think that this
gives the she-male warmth and protection (and
attention, too, I’m sure). (Source)

Bonus: From Current Science:

!e annual red-garter mating balls are a big

tourist attraction in Manitoba—and a source of
many tales. One unsuspecting couple built a house
on top of an empty snake pit one summer, only to
find their property swarmed by thousands of red-
sided garters returning to their traditional
hibernation den in the fall. !e couple quickly
relocated their new house. (Source)

Hyena: !e Females Got Balls!

Spotted hyena. (Image credit: LA Dawson,

Wikipedia)
 

Female hyenas wear the pants in the family. !ey’re

bigger and stronger than the males. And definitely
much more aggressive. Heck, they even got balls.
Really.

A female hyena has a pseudopenis, basically an

enlarged clitoris, that they can erect at will. To
mate, the meeker male has to insert his penis into
her pseudopenis. !at’s difficult for the males, but
still nothing compared to the female having to give
birth through a penis!

Biologist Laurence Frank describes something else

that is strange about hyenas – the way they say
hello to each other:

After being separated for a few hours, spotted

hyenas engage in “greeting” displays that entail
lifting their legs and exposing their erect
pseudopenises for inspection. Subordinate females
often initiate greetings and this is the only known
case of an erection being a submissive gesture.
“"is unusual display is not without its risks
[because] each hyena puts its reproductive organs
in immediate proximity to very powerful jaws,”
says Frank. “On the rare occasions when the
aggression escalates to fighting, the resulting
damage may be severe enough to destroy or
seriously compromise the reproductive competence
of the injured party.” (Source)
Manakin: Moonwalking to Impress
the Ladies

!ere’s dancing and there’s dancing – like the

moonwalk that the male Manakin does to impress
the ladies! Michael Jackson has nothing on them
manakins!

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – !anks Xopl and

Kamilf!

Giraffe: Not in Estrus? No !anks!

Male giraffe nudging the female’s rump to induce

urination. (Image credit: Liz Leyden)

With that ridiculously long neck of theirs, mating

is hard work for male giraffes. So, when a male
happens upon a female giraffe, he will perform a
procedure known as the “fleshmen sequence” to see
if she is in estrus. First, he nudges her rump to
induce urination. He then takes a mouthful of
urine. If it tastes good to him, then he begins to
court her.

Actually, “court” may be too strong a word: the male

giraffe basically follows her around until she gives
in and lets him have her! (Source)

Emperor Penguin: Starvin’ for Love

Emperor penguins and chicks (Image Credit: BrynJ

[Flickr])
 

Emperor Penguins, the subject of the popular 2005

documentary March of the Penguins, have a strange
“marriage”. Penguin couples spend their lives apart
from each other and meet once a year in late
March, after traveling as far as 70 miles (112 km)
inland – on foot or sliding on their bellies! – to
reach the breeding site.

Once there, penguins look for their mates by

making a bugling call. Male penguins generally
stay in one place, lower their head to their chest
and call out to the females. Once they find one
another, they would stand breast to breast,
repeatedly bow to each other and sing (okay,
“bugle”).

Now, onto the mating itself: Like in most birds,

penguins have no external genitalia. "at’s right,
male penguins don’t have penises and the females
don’t have vaginas. "e male’s sperm is produced in
the testes and stored in his cloaca (kind of an all
purpose orifice for defecating, urinating, and
reproduction). "e female also has a cloaca that
leads to the ovaries. "e female penguin lies flat on
the ground and the male penguin presses his
cloaca onto hers and passes the sperms through.

Once the egg is laid, the female Emperor Penguin

transfers it very carefully to her mate (if the egg
touches the ice, it would freeze and die), who then
keeps the egg warm by tucking it under a large fold
of skin until it hatches. "e female penguin
immediately returns to the sea to feed, leaving the
male without food for about two months. "e male
penguins would huddle together in large groups to
conserve body heat in the cold and harsh
environment, where winds can reach up to 120
mph (200 km per hour). When the female returns,
she finds her mate (and chick) by listening to one
particular bugle over thousands other.

When it was released, March of the Penguins sparked

a controversy when the Christian right claimed it
as a parable of monogamy amongst other things.
Turns out, Emperor Penguins are serially
monogamous – meaning that for that breeding
season, they only have one mate. However, if they
can’t find one another the next season (and most
can’t – only about 15% of pairs find each other in
subsequent year, and just 5% in the third year) they
will choose new mates.

Dolphin: !at’s Not His Hand.

A pair of dolphins mating (left), while a friend
swims nearby without a hint of embarassment
(Image Credit: Carmelo Aquilina [Flickr])
 

Here’s something you probably don’t know about

Flipper: he has retractable penis. And if that’s not
cool enough, here’s something else: his penis is
prehensile. And it swivels. In fact, a male dolphin
can use his penis to explore objects just like a hand.

Male dolphins also have a very strong sex drive. It

can mate many, many times in a day. Now here’s
the bad news: male dolphins aren’t that much of a
stud. #e average time to ejaculation? 12 seconds.

Another hushed-up fact is that male dolphins have

a ravenous sexual appetite: they often try to hump
inanimate objects and even other animals like sea
turtles. When a pack of male dolphins happen
upon a female, often times they will attempt to
force her to mate.

Percula Clownfish: Your Mommy Was

Your Daddy.
Clownfish in Kayauchi Banta, Okinawa (Image
Credit: Nemo’s great uncle[Flickr])
 

In Disney’s animated movie Finding Nemo, the

animators forgot to tell you one thing about
clownfish: they can change gender!

Clownfish live in a group consisting of a breeding

pair of male and female, as well as some non-
breeding males. "ere is strict hierarchy based on
size: the largest is the female, next largest is the
male, and then the non-breeding males.

If the female dies (or gets fished, I suppose), the

male will change sex and become the female! "en
the largest of the non-breeding males will get a
promotion to become the breeding male.

Giant Panda: X-Rated Panda Porn!

Who cares about sex? Let’s eat! (Image Credit:
peiqianlong [Flickr])
 

For a while, zookeepers had trouble getting pandas

raised in captivity to breed. In fact, male and
female pandas showed little interest in sex – that is
until someone at the Chengdu Giant Panda
Breeding and Research Base in Sichuan Province,
China, had the bright idea of showing them panda
porn!

Now, when pandas reach adulthood, zookeepers

there show them steamy videos of panda sex as
part of their initiation rites.

Galapagos Giant Tortoise: "e

Longest Neck Wins.

Link [YouTube].

To determine who gets to mate, male Galapagos

giant tortoises will rise on their legs and stretch
their necks. !e shorter tortoise will cry uncle and
leave the taller, larger tortoise to mate.

!e victor then proceeds to attract a female by

bellowing and bobbing his head furiously. When he
has found a mate, the male rams the female and
nips her legs until she draws them in, thereby
immobilizing her. He then proceeds to mount her.

Mating can last for hours, during which the male

grunts and roars loudly (see video clip). If he seems
terribly excited about the whole deal, that’s
probably because he’s been waiting a long time for
sex. See, it takes 40 years for Galapagos giant
tortoises to reach sexual maturity.

So what happened to the short “loser” male

tortoises? Frustrated males have been observed
humping rocks and even other frustrated males
(why, there’s even a YouTube clip).

Garden Snail: Love Darts

Roman snails mating: the gallery (Image Credit:
Robert Nordsieck)

Snails’ genitals are on their necks, right behind

their eye-stalks. Not weird enough? Read on.

Snails are hermaphrodites, meaning they have

both male and female sexual organs, but they do
not self-fertilize.

Before two snails mate, they shoot “love darts”

made of calcium at each other. People used to think
that these sharp darts are nutritional gifts, like you
give someone you love a box of chocolate.
Snail love dart (Image Credit: Prof. Ronald Chase)

Scientists now think, however, that these darts

serve a more sinister purpose. !e mucus on the
darts allow more sperms to be stored in the snail’s
uterus (and thus helped it gain an edge in
reproduction).

!ere’s no advantage to the target snail (getting hit

may even be dangerous as snails are really, really
bad shots). Indeed, snails jostle each other not only
to get into a better position to fire their darts, but
also to avoid getting hit themselves! (Source)

Bedbug: Traumatic Insemination

Here’s chivalry for you: the male bedbugs don’t

even bother with the female’s sex organs. Instead, a
male bedbug uses its scimitar-like sexual organ to
impale the female bedbug’s body and deposit his
sperm!
Scientists even have a cute name for this sort of
thing: “traumatic insemination.” Ouch!

Porcupine: Wee Marks the Spot.

Quick: how do porcupines mate? If you answer:

“carefully,” you’d only be half right – it’s also
“bizarrely.” Indeed, porcupines have a very bizarre
mating habit:

First of all, female porcupines are interested in sex

only about 8 to 12 hours in a year!  Second, to court
a female during the short mating season, a male
porcupine stands up on his hind legs, waddles up
to her, and then sprays her with a huge stream of
urine from as far as 6 feet away, and drench his
would-be paramour from head to foot!

If the female wasn’t impressed, she’ll scream and

shake off the urine.  But, if she is ready, then she’ll
rear up to expose her quill-less underbelly and let
the male mount her from the behind (that’s the
only safe position for porcupines!). Once mating
begins, the female is insatiable: she forces the male
to mate many times until he is thoroughly
exhausted. If he gets tired too quickly, she will
leave him for another male! (Source)

Red Velvet Mite: !e Love Gardener

Red Velvet Mite (Image Credit: erica_naturegirl

[Flickr])Red velvet mite, which is as big as one of
the letters in this sentence, has a peculiar mating
habit.

!e male releases its sperms on small twigs or

stalks in what scientists call the “love garden”, then
lays down an intricate silken trail to the spot. When
a female stumbles upon this trail, she will follow it
to seek out the “artist”. If she likes his work, then
she will sit on the sperm.

However, if another male spots the garden, he will

trash it and lay his own instead! (Source)

Bowerbird: Obsessive Decorator of

Bachelor Pad

Satin Bowerbird in front of his bower (Image

Credit: bdonald [Flickr])
 

To attract a mate, the male bowerbird [wiki] builds

an amazingly complex structure called a bower. It
is made of twigs and often shaped like a small hut.

#e male bird then decorates his “bachelor pad”

bower with a variety of objects as gifts: flowers,
feathers, stones, and even bits of discarded plastics
and glass. Hundreds of pieces are carefully
arranged in monochromatic themes (i.e. all blue
items). !e bird is so anal that it will get really
angry if you mess up its pile (say, by putting one
differently colored pebble in its pile).

!e male bowerbird spends hours sorting and

arranging things. In fact, it will break its focus only
to go to a different males’ bowers to steal stuff and
mess the place up!

Don’t miss: David Attenborough on Bowerbird

[YouTube]

Macaque: Sneaky Attackers

Is it time to attack yet? (Image Credit: Hunda

[Flickr])
 

Male macaques will pay (in form of fruits) to get a

peek at the hind quarters of a female macaque.

Actually, that’s not all: they will also pay to gaze at

pictures of dominant “celebrity” monkeys (i.e. the
high-ranking males) in their pack. Huh.

Anyways, if that isn’t enough bad behavior for you,

think about this: macaque males will attack their
enemy when he is at his weakest: during orgasm.

Attackers often use considerable cunning to get

near their victim without arousing any suspicion.
"ey may feign indifference by barely glancing at
him, digging casually in the sand or pretending to
collect handfuls of pebbles. But the moment their
victim ejaculates, they jump him, hitting, biting
and tugging at his fur. (Source)

Fire Ant: Queen and Workers

“Negotiate” the Colony’s Sex Ratio
Ants have a complex social structure. Case in point:
some scientists used to think that worker ants are
all females who control the queen (a simple egg-
laying machine) and kill their brothers while still
larvae.

It turns out the queen has more say than this: she
controls the number of females and male eggs she
lays.

But why does a colony’s sex ratio matter? A queen

wants to propagate her line by producing another
queen, which needs male drones to mate and
produce a colony. Worker ants, on the other hand,
have no use for males (which die after mating).

So, the queen and her daughters negotiate a rather

violent solution: when she needs male drones, the
queen will “overwhelm” the colony with male eggs.
"e female workers will kill many of their brothers,
but they can’t kill them all! (Source)

Sea Hare: Mating Chain

Aplysia dactylomela, a genus of sea hares, in a
mating chain
(Image Credit: Anne DuPont) 

Sea hares, like all sea slugs (see flatworm above),

are hermaphrodites. But that’s not all – they’re
efficient hermaphorodites! When sea hares mate,
they form a mating chain of several animals!

#e sea hare in front acts as the female to the one

directly behind it. Sometimes, they even form a
giant circle, with everyone inside happily mating
the day away. (Source)

Argonaut: Detachable Penis

Argonaut or paper nautilus is a weird species of

octopus. First, they have a highly divergent sexual
dimorphism. #at’s science-speak for the
difference in body sizes between males and
females. A female argonaut grows up to 10 cm (~ 4
in.) with shells as large as 45 cm (~ 18 in.) #e male,
however, is only 2 cm (3/4 in) long!
But that’s not why argonaut is on this list. !e male
argonaut produces a ball of spermatozoa in a
special tentacle called a hectocotylus [wiki]. When
meeting a female it fancies, the male then detaches
its penis to swim by itself to the female!

Hectocotylus (Image Credit: Julian Finn,

Macalogist)

!is detachable swimming penis was actually first

noted by an Italian naturalist back in the 1800s,
who mistook it for a parasitic worm!

Whiptail Lizard: Sex? No !anks!

We’ll Clone Ourselves Instead.
Whiptail Lizard in pseudocopulation (Image
Credit: Tino Mauricio, Daily Texan)

How does a whiptail lizard have sex? Trick

question! !ere are no males – all whiptail lizards
are females, so they can’t have sex at all. Wait a
minute – so how do they reproduce? By cloning
themselves:

In the bizarre life of a whiptail lizard, reproduction

is preceeded by pseudocopulation, where two
females act out the roles of a male mounting a
female (they switch roles later on).

Apparently, this is required to stimulate egg

production in both lizards. When the eggs hatch,
they will be all-female clones of the mother lizard.
(Source)

Straw Itch Mite: Incestuous Brothers

After they are born, the male straw itch mites
(pyemotes) hang around their mom, stinging her
to suck out her body fluids.

#e male mites are born sexually mature. In fact,

they will immediately grab and mate with their
sister within minutes of her birth!

(Image Source: Ronald Ochoa, Systematic

Entomology Laboratory)

Banana Slug: Penis Stuck? Chew It

Off!

Banana slugs checking each other out for size

(Image Credit: Husond, Wikipedia)

Banana slug, the beloved mascot of UC Santa Cruz,

has a weird mating habit. First of all, they have an
enormous penis. (In fact, their latin name
dolichyphallus translates to “giant penis.”) !e
average size of a banana slug penis is 6 to 8 inches.
!is is incredibly impressive, considering their
entire body length is 6 to 8 inches as well!

Banana slugs are hermaphrodites, so two slugs will

try to fertilize each other. To mate properly, a slug
must choose a mate roughly its own size – if it
miscalculates, its penis will get stuck during
copulation.

!is isn’t just an embarrassing faux pas, the other

slug will actually bite off the stuck penis, a term
scientists euphemistically called “apophallation.”
(Source)

Anglerfish: Let’s Me Be A Part of You.

Literally.

!e Prickly Deep Sea Anglerfish males becoming

one with their female (Image Credit: David
Paul/Mark Norman, Australian Conservation
Foundation)
 

Anglerfish, a deep sea fish named for the spiny

appendage on its head that it uses as bait to “fish”
its prey, has an unusual mating habit. As it spends
its time in the bottom of the ocean, finding a mate
is a problem – but the species solved this
evolutionary challenge beautifully.

At first, scientists were perplexed because they’ve

never caught a male anglerfish. Also, all female
anglerfish have a lump on their body that looks like
a parasite. Only later did scientists discover that
the lump is the remain of the male fish.

"e tiny male anglerfish are born without any

digestive system, so once they hatch, they have to
find a female quickly. When a male finds a female,
he quickly bites her body and releases an enzyme
that digests his skin and her body to fuse the two in
an eternal embrace. "e male then wastes away,
becoming nothing but a lump on the female
anglerfish’s body!

When the female is ready to spawn, her “male

appendage” is there, ready to release sperms to
fertilize her egg.
Barnacle: Inflatable Penis

Yes, that long thing is a barnacle penis mating with

its neighbor (Image Credit: Sue Scott, MarLIN)
 

Barnacles, those crustaceans that stick themselves

to the bottom of boats (much to the consternation
of sailors everywhere), are stuck in one position all
their lives.

So, how do they mate? #e solution, turns out, is

brilliantly simple: the barnacle has an inflatable
penis that is up to 50 times as long as its body. In
fact, it has the longest penis in the animal
kingdom, relative to body length!

Fruit Fly: World’s Longest Sperm

!e title of world’s longest sperm actually belongs
to a tiny fruit fly called Drosophila bifurca. When the
coiled sperm is straightened out, it measures about
2 inches which is over 1,000 times longer than a
human sperm. In fact, the testes of a fruit fly
makes up 11 percent of the body mass of the male!

Turns out the very long sperm is evolutionarily

driven by the just-as-long female reproductive
tract, which is like an obstacle course, complete
with harsh chemicals to weed out weak sperms.
(Source)

Argentine Lake Duck: Very Well-

Endowed, Can Even Lasso a Female.
!e very well-endowed Argentine Lake Duck
(Image Credit: K. McCracken [pdf])
 

!e Argentine lake duck may be small, but don’t

take pity on it. See, the drake (male duck) of the
lowly fowl has the longest penis of any bird species
in the world.

From head to tail, the Argentine lake duck

measures about 17 inches. !at also happens to be
the length of its corkscrew-shaped penis when
stretched out. !e tip of the penis is soft and
brush-like, which the drake uses to brush away
sperms deposited by a previous suitor.

University of Alaska Kevin McCracken explains that

the ducks are promiscuous, and the long penis may
be an evolutionary adaptation for the males to
become more attractive to the females. !at, and
the drake also uses his penis to “lasso” a female who
tries to escape from it. (Source)

Gorilla: Big, But Not So Big.

Silverback (a male gorilla): size ain’t everything!
(Image Credit: dbarronoss[Flickr])
 

Let’s end this lengthy article with the gorillas, the

largest of all living primates.

Upside: Mature male gorillas, called silverbacks,

are huge (up to 425 lb., sometimes even more). A
silverback lives in a troop of 5 up to 30 females,
with which he mates all year long. "ere is little
competition for females, since a large silverback is
scary and can easily protect its group from
challengers.

Downside: 1 1/2 inch (~ 4 cm) penis. (Yeah, no

competition for females remember?). So,
remember that next time someone say you’re an
“800-lb gorilla” – it may just be an insult!
Advertisements

REPORT THIS AD

SHARE THIS:

 Twitter  Facebook
 creativityposts
Just a creative type place to be.

 

 January 16, 2017

 Nature

 Previous post

 Next post

Leave a Reply
Your email address will not be published.
Required fields are marked
 

Post Comment

Notify me of new comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

SEARCH

Search … 

FOLLOW ON TWITTER
NEW!

» Saving !e Earth Kicks Off In Nwaorieubi.

» World Of Introverts: 12 things they wish you

undersood

» Artist protests Trump again — but with a

 bloody mural

» 25 Of !e Most Fascinating Beaches In !e

World

» World Top 50 Foods

SCHEDULE AND INFO

23407080972206

Lunch: 11am - 2pm

Dinner: M-! 5pm - 11pm, Fri-Sat:5pm - 1am

SOCIAL

» !» ! » ! » ! » !

FOLLOW TO SUBSCRIBE

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive

notifications of new posts by email.

Email Address
 Follow
Join 5,887 other subscribers

PAGES

» About
» Contact
» Posts

FACEBOOK CREATIVITY

UP ↑