In general, different animals may mate in different manners, but in most cases the main purpose is to transfer sperm from the male to the female.

The mating process always involves the struggle of one sex (often the male) to win the mating with the female. The failure of this process is normally a few or no offspring to sustain the generation of their own species. In contrary, a successful male to attract the female of his species may assist in passing his genes on to the next generation. However, in the world of insects, the male may attract a completely different kind of female as his partner. The female insect is particularly more interested to lay her eggs rather than to look for sex.

In regards to mating, Lost in Arizona, a writer at Triond has a brilliantly written article entitled 10 Bizarre Mating Technique to supplement the incomplete part of this article.

The Indian Bullfrog: Ready and Call for a Sexual Service!

(Image source: REUTERS 2006-06-24)

The Indian bullfrog (Hoplobatrachus tigerinus) is the largest frog in Pakistan which is usually found hibernating by burrowing in soil during winter as well as during drought.

(Image source: REUTERS 2006-06-24)

During mating, the male (lemon yellow in color) will croak repeatedly to attract the attention of the female (dull and light-brown color). The croak of the male has a powerful nasal “Cronk, cronk, cronk”, but sometimes it sounds like “oong wang, oong wang, oong wang”. When the mating season begins, the males will repeat their aggressive croaks several times by sitting close to each other in the shallow water or pond, splashing into the water, jumping over each other to attract the females. At the same time, the female will lurk around by the calls of the males, initiate copulation by making contact with a carefully selected male. The males hang around the periphery, hoping to get lucky.

(Image source: REUTERS 2006-06-24)

If one of the males manage to grab the female frog they will jump in pair and somehow move together to a quiet place to avoid the fighting, pushing and tugging from other male frogs. There, the female will lay its eggs (2.5 to 2.8mm in diameter) in large volume with each of the egg enclosed with a layer of double coat of jelly.

Butterfly: Endurance beyond Love!

(Image source: Luis Romero, El Salvador [AP 2006-06-13])

The butterflies spend much time to search for mates. The adult males will usually search for the females of its own species which have the recognizable pattern and color in their wings. When the male spots his mate, he will fly closer; usually he is behind or above the female. Approaching closer and closer, the male will release the chemical substance called pheromones, while fluttering his wings more frequent that he usually does.

(Image source: Kang-Chae Lee, Korean Monthly Science Magazine “Science Dong-A”[Feb. 1996])

(Image source: Martin Kramer, Amsterdam)

To attract the female, the male make a special “courtship dance” which may consist of some peculiar dancing postures. If the female gets excited with his dancing, she may join him. There, they join their bodies together end to end at their abdomens. At this stage, the male passes the sperm to the female’s egg-laying tube which will soon be fertilized by the sperm. The male is always unfortunate as he often has to face the death shortly after mating.

After mating ends, the female must go to select the correct plant species to lay her eggs. Once she is sure she has encountered her favorite plant, she will start laying eggs either as a single egg or in clusters which will be fertilized with the sperm that has been stored in her body while mating with the male. The produced eggs are enclosed with a sticky substance to enable the eggs to be attached firmly either on a stem or on the underside of a leaf.

Dolphin: You Guy All Crazy at Sex!

(Image source: Carmelo Aquilina)

(Image source: SexyVixen)

Dolphins are by far animals that have strong sexual desires as they mate many times in a day. Nevertheless, each mating section ends very fast with on longer than 12 seconds. As the male dolphins have ravenous sexual appetites, they will always attempt to hump inanimate objects and even other animals like sea turtles. The male dolphin will often force the female to have sex. The other hushed-up fact is that the male has a retractable penis, the flaccid penis located within his body and both penises appear while on demand. Another cool fact to add in is that his penis is prehensile which can swivel to explore an object around him just like a hand.

Sea Hare: There’s a company to get the job done!

(Image source: Mating chain, Ann DuPont)

Like many snails, sea slugs (looks like a flat worm in the pictures) and earthworms, sea hares are hermaphrodites as they have both male and female reproductive organs. Nevertheless, they are unable to fertilize their own eggs and hereby they require a mate for this purpose. While mating, sea hares can either be acted as a female, or male. As its penis is on the right side of the head while the vagina is located in the mantle cavity, beneath the shell, deep down between the parapodia, and despite of these physical adaptations, it is therefore impossible for the sea hare to function as both female and male at the same time.

(Image source: Sea Hare eggs, Robert Todd)

While mating, three or more sea hares pile up to form a mating chain (they also mate in pairs with one acts as a male, the other as a female, but they usually occur in the crowded numbers during the mating season), with the one at the front acts as a female while the one at the back as a male. The animal(s) in between could be as both females and males. In the intercourse process, a male sea hare would attach his penis to the vagina of the middle sea hare, and a female would attach with the middle sea hare’s penis. That means the middle one is always the go-between to pass the sperm through to the other. This giant mating chain enables the sea hare to breed with two other sea hares internally at a time to fertilize a string of spaghetti looks like eggs into the form of long ribbons or in masses as large as a grapefruit’s diameter. At a time, a sea hare can lay up to as many as 86 million eggs which will soon hatch in 10 to 12 days.

Barnacles: Wow, Crazy Long Penis for Mating!

(Image source: Underseadive)

(Image source: Barnacle’s inflatable penis, Sue Scott, MarLIN)

Barnacles are crustaceans attacked firmly to the rocks. As they are primarily stationary animal, how do they mate? The solution to this obstacle is solved by their relatively long penises adapted for their own species of their sizes. These inflatable penises can reach up to 50 times as long as their bodies; there should not be problems for them to have sex with their neighbors as well as to fertilize distant neighbors. Imagine that their penises could reach to another seven shells away! Wow, such the longest penis in the animal kingdom! Incredible!

 

“The benefit of a longer penis is obvious for the barnacles – it helps them reach more barnacles – but the tradeoff is that it could wave around wildly on shores exposed to waves,” explained researcher Christopher Neufeld, an evolutionary marine biologist at University of Alberta in Edmonton.

Praying Mantis: Get Your Head Off for Sex!

(Image source: Praying Mantis Wise to Sexual Cannibalism Risk [LiveScience 2006-07-26])

The Praying Mantis has long been known for the cannibalistic response while copulating. During mating, the male mantis will jump on the back of the female. If he miscounted the jump, he is more likely to become a meal for her. However, if his jump was successful, they will mate sexually. Despite of this reason, he usually approaches her more cautious. He will thus choose to approach her from behind and then hang onto her back with his front legs. When mating begins, he will follow an elaborate multi-step dance-like ritual that can last even for hours.

(Image source: Pansphoto.com)

While he is mating with her, she sometimes has a habit of biting his head off. This is believed to be a common practice as a necessary part to complete the reproductive process. It is said to be a signal for the male to release his sperm which provides the female with sufficient protein to enable her to lay more eggs. After mating, the female will lay 12 to 400 eggs in a walnut size small case which will then turn hard into a protective and warm home for the newborn babies. The nymphs hatch much alike of their parents.

Redback spider: Come on, Guy, Jump over Me for a Favor!

(Image source by William Thiam, redback spider)

Like the praying mantis, Redback spider (Latrodectus hasselti) has been noted for its sexual cannibalism. To attract the attention of the female, the male has to make overturns to her to confirm whether she is ready to mate with him.

(Image source: The Invisible Sex Dance of Psychedelic Spiders [LiveScience 2007-01-25])

Note: This is other species of spiders, showing you what happens during their mating.

While mating, the male will offer his abdomen and by standing on his head and somersaulting to place his abdomen over the female’s mouthparts. Next, she begins to squirt digestive juices onto his abdomen while inserting the first palp. If he is still strong, he will be able to withdraw to insert the second pulp. In most cases, she will eat him while or after the mating. If he is lucky enough not being eaten by her, he will die soon after mating. The act of sacrificing himself is deemed necessary to enable her to copulate for a longer period to assist in fertilising more eggs. Once she has mated with him, she may lay eggs from 40 to 300 in each sac (1cm in diameter and the sac is suspended within the web) for every 25 to 30 days. She will work very hard to spin up to 8 round balls of web for her eggs with some of these contain as many as 300 eggs. Sometimes, during this period, she can lay up to 5,000 eggs. These eggs will hatch within 13 to 15 days after being laid.

Penguin: Be Patient, Buddy!

(Image source: Martha de Jong-Lantink)

Penguins have a tough job to do while mating due to their bottle shaped bodies and thus their mating process lasts no longer than 3 minutes. And they only get to do the mating once in a year. The penguins have a very strange marriage life as they spend longer time staying apart. They only meet once or twice a year after walking on foot or sliding their bellies to cover a large distance that they have travelled. They look for mates by making a bugling sound.

(Image source: Martha de Jong-Lantink)

During the mating season, the males stay onshore to call for their mates by lowering their heads down to their chests. Once the male manage to attract the female, they would stand facing breast to breast while bowing to each other. Then, they sing loudly with outstretched and trembling flippers. While mating, the female must keep still while the male gets on top. Any single moves of the female will cause the male to fall off. Penguins are mostly monogamous, meaning that they are with one mate at a time. Nevertheless, the males can have up to 2 mates. Similarly, the females can have up to 3 mates. Interestingly, the female has the “veto power” to decide the mate selection. When the male did not return to the shores as expected, the female will select another male as her partner.

Flatworms: War before Sex, please!

(Image source: The Shape of Life, PBS)

The flatworms (Pseudobiceros hancockanus) are hermaphrodites, meaning that they have both male and female sexual organs. Each of them has both ovaries with eggs and testes with sperm. Some of them may even have two penises and probably one or more genital pores to receive a two-tailed sperm delivering during copulation. The male organ appears to be two dagger-like penises which they use for hunting as well as mating. In the case of reproduction, the sperm is not delivered into a genital opening, instead the flatworm use its penis to inject sperm straight into its mate by piercing into its skin. Flatworms have a bizarre mating ritual as for them; sex is not love but more like a war and thus they appear to engage themselves in some odd reproductive behavior, known as penis fencing.

During mating, two flatworms fight to stab each other, whilst avoiding being stabbed itself. The attempt to stab each other with its penis (or called penis fencing) can last for one hour or more. The winner becomes the de facto male, while the poor bastard gets jammed who will get stabbed to absorb the sperm via its skin and has to bear the burden of motherhood.

Argonaut: A detachable Penis Gets an Easy Excess to Sex!

(Image source: Julian Finn, Macalogist)

Argonaut (Paper nautilus) is a weird soft-bodied (mollusk) marine animal which belongs to a species of octopus. Its male is a dwarf which is about 10% of the female’s length of its species.

(Image source: Hectocotylus, Julian Finn, Macalogist)

The male has been adapted with a third tentacle or the hectocotylus forming inside a sac to aid in reproduction. The males mate once in their lifetime. When this guy gets exciting with the girl he meets, he will detach its penis to swim by itself to the female. At mating, the male use his modified third arm or hectocotylus which carries one large spermatophore to deposit the sperm in the female’s mantle cavity. This is followed by inserting his arm into the female’s pallial cavity to fertilize the eggs. Female will soon breed into thousands of small eggs that are deposited in an external shell-like egg case.

Fruit Fly: Female, Interested with the Longest Sperm?

(Image source: Giant sperm species, Abc.net)

The Fruit flies (Drosophila bifurca) are regarded as the animals on earth that have the world’s longest sperm ever measured. When their coiled sperms are straightened out, they measure approximately 2 inches or nearly 20 times the total body length of the male. This length of sperm is even longer than a human’s sperm for over 1,000 times. This crazy long sperm has been evolved by the just-as-long female reproductive tract which selects for different kinds of sperm for its reproduction purpose.

Whiptail Lizard: Homosexuality? Never mind, let’s Clone Together!

(Image source: Two whiptail lizards in pseudocopulation, Tino Mauricio, Daily Texan)

Whiptail lizards (Cnemidophorus sp.) are native to Arizona but these lizards are apparently odd that they are nearly all-female or all-female populations. Now, you will ask how the females could have sex without males. Aren’t they amazing to learn that they reproduce by cloning themselves? That means they reproduce by parthenogenesis. Guess what? They will engage in pseudo sex whereby one lizard lies on top of another to stimulate egg production in both females. They will then switch off such role for the next mating season. When they lay eggs, the lizard that was on top has smaller eggs while the one on bottom has larger eggs. That means their offspring are a fully all-female genetic clones of the mother lizard.

Cricket: Hey, Guy, Sing to win your lover’s Heart!

(Image source: Wikipedia)

Crickets are one of the leaping insects that have a length vary from around 3 to 50mm (0.1 to 2inches) found primarily in the temperate climates. The male crickets attract their mates by emitting a calling sound in a predictable rhythm at dusk, persisting until dawn. This calling sound is fairy loud to attract the attention of the females while at the same time repelling other males from walking closer.

Prior to the calling, the males will create a small burrow (acts like an amplifier) to assist in extending their broadcast distance. In a sense that the females hear sounds from a much greater distance than the maximum distance at which their antennae are effective. Therefore, the males will make an aggressive sound to increase the chances of successful mate location for both sexes. The females will evaluate each song and move towards to those they prefer. When the female is attracted to the calling song, the male must prepare to court and mate with a female by the time he begins his singing. When the male feels that the female is closer to him, he will attract her with a softer courting song. After mating, the female will search for an ideal place particularly in warm and damp soil to lay eggs. The females are equipped with a long need-like egg-laying organ (ovipositor) to reproduce sexually from one to three generations each year. They often lay eggs in the ground or in soft-stemmed plants during the fall or late summer.