For animals, the aim of mating is to spread their genes as much as possible. But their efforts to do so sometimes outweigh the mating itself.
Are you ready to take a look at the amazing mating rituals of the animal kingdom, from preparing special places where they can show off for their mate, to ‘dressing up’ with the opposite sex?
AFRICAN BULL FROG
The African bull frog’s mating is both complicated and brutal.
Young male frogs congregate in small, shallow puddles.
At the centers of these breeding ponds are large male frogs with dominant characters chasing small rivals.
Trying to prevent others from breeding, these frogs fight among themselves, injuring and sometimes killing each other.
While the female swims towards the male frogs in the breeding pool, when she encounters small frogs, she dives under them and tries to reach the large frogs in the middle.
Eventually, he goes to the area dominated by one of the big frogs and mates with it.
Argus Pheasant
Few creatures care for their mating grounds more than the male Argus pheasants of Southeast Asia.
It catches its eye on a 6-7 square meter area in the forest so that its impressive mottled feathers can be seen well.
First it cleans the place sparklingly, then in the mornings it sings in a special way, inviting the females.
If the female accepts this invitation and comes to her ‘room’, she turns around and dances with her feet on the floor to impress him.
This dance ends with its wings spreading like a fan to show.
If the female likes it, mating takes place.
ANGLER FISH
If you want a painless love story, don’t read any further. The female anglerfish was first found and studied in 1833, but for a long time it was unknown what their males looked like.
It was only in 1924 that it was discovered that the small fish hanging over the female angler fish were not their offspring, but the males they were mating with.
How? You may regret asking.
When the male anglerfish wants to mate, it goes and eats a hole in the side of the larger female and settles there.
Over time, their skin, blood vessels, and digestive systems fuse, and the male’s eyes, fins, and some organs either fall off or dry out.
It turns into a parasite that lives on its female. Its only role is to occasionally extract sperm for reproduction.
chimpanzees
Male chimpanzees are even crueler than African bull frogs.
It attacks, bites, hits, and sometimes injures females to force them to mate.
This aggressive behavior can last for two to three years without mating.
The theory is that females, out of fear, do not resist males who want to mate with them while they are fertile.
The female does not mate with another male afterward for fear of violence.
OSTRICH
The ostrich is the largest of the surviving birds. Although half of its length consists of its long neck, an adult ostrich can reach 2.75 meters. Also, 3 percent of all birds with penises.
Most birds do not have penises and they mate in a method called “cloak kissing”.
The cloaca is actually a defecation hole that looks more like a vagina than a penis. It swells during the breeding season, and the males press their cloaca over the female’s to transfer their sperm to the female.
Birds in the group of flightless birds, including the ostrich, have penises. However, it does not swell with blood as in mammals and reptiles, but with lymph fluid.
Females recognize that the male has entered the breeding season when his legs change from pale pink to bright red.
RAINBIRD
Some male rainbirds “disguise themselves as females” to mate.
Males gather in large groups and fluff the feathers on their necks to lure females who show their willingness to mate by bending over to expose their genitals.
However, among the pretentious male birds, there are some rainbirds that hide unnoticed and pretend to be females. These are actually males, but their plumage is not as impressive as those of other males.
These fake females jump on a real female and mate at the last minute, ‘spoiling’ the bubbling males. These shrewd male rainbirds ‘disguise themselves as females’, but their testicles are particularly large.
According to a study from the University of Sheffield in England, this act of acting like a female is genetic.
Birds that behave like females can thus live without being the target of aggressive behavior among other dominant male birds.
SEA Snail
The sea snail may not be the most attractive of animals, but it has an extraordinary sex life.
Since snails that mate both have both a penis and a vagina, they douche at the same time.
Not only are they androgynous, they shed their penis 20 minutes after using it – but a new one pops up almost the next day!
Biologists say that about 24 hours after the sea snail’s penis falls off, a tightly coiled spiral organ opens up to form a new penis.
As for the similarities between the courtship and mating rituals of animals and those of humans…
In both of them, showing oneself to a spouse candidate, choosing a spouse according to quality, possessiveness and, to a certain extent, cunning behaviors play a role.
It is known that choosing the right spouse is a difficult task. But some animals’ efforts to do so can surpass that of humans.