Strange Mating Habits
Strange Mating Habits
From the very moment that your active sex life starts, you realise that there are so many things than just missionary position that comprises sex.
Sex can be a lot of things, scary, exciting, confusing and at times dangerous. Mating habits in the animal kingdom range from strangely romantic, to gag inducing, to kinky and to absolutely terrifying.
If you think your sex habits are awkward, wait until you read about the sex lives of these creatures. Here are nine of the most bizarre animal mating habits found in nature
1) Leopard slugs
Slugs have some of the slimiest sex in the animal kingdom. Hermaphroditic slugs in heat will circle each other for hours, engaging in foreplay that includes nibbling, biting and tail whipping.
Once they are ready for intercourse, they entwine their bodies. Their penises will emerge from the backs of their heads, so that they can inseminate one another. If they are not careful, their penises can get stuck together, requiring one slug to gnaw the other’s penis off. In this case, the victim lives the rest of its life as a female.
2) Sex gets pretty brutal between Australian redback spiders
This poisonous spider is known to have one of the most gruesome mating habits, known as sexual cannibalism. Biologist Maydianne Andrade, who’s researched this mating habit, explains that a female will start to devour its male mate while they’re still having sex.
3) Male Antechinus stuartii mate themselves to death.
According to Scientific America, these poor, mouse-sized marsupials have only 10 months before their bodies stop producing sperm and they enter an intense, two week-long mating marathon. By the end of mating season, stress hormones coursing through their bodies cause their immune systems to break down. Before the year is through, they’ll die due to infections and internal bleeding.
4) Male hippopotamuses are into poop play.
When a male hippo wants to impress a lady, he does what any self-respecting horny hippo would do — he uses his tail to fling faeces in her direction. Apparently, this is a simple wayto share information about his reproductive health.
5) Mosquitos perform musical duets before mating.
Humans hate the dreaded “buzz” of an approaching mosquito. However, for fellow mosquitos, that buzz, which is actually the sound of wings flapping, acts as a kind of love song,mosquito a team from Cornell University in US discovered.
Male mosquitos “buzz” at between 550 and 650 Hertz while females buzz at about 350 to 450 Hz. When female mosquitos fly close to male mosquitos, they harmonize their wing flapping as a signifier of good health and fitness. If a male can’t match a female’s song, she’s on to the next one.
6) Male Northern Darwin frogs keep their developing babies inside their mouths
While it’s typically the mother’s burden to birth offspring after mating, this isn’t the case for Darwin frogs. After females lay three to seven eggs, male frogs scoop them uo into their mouths, where they stay until they are fully formed. The father then spits them out. They cannot do the deed and walk away. Tough deal for the father in this case.
7) Sex for the male honeybee is an evolutionarily rewarding, albeit gruesome and suicidal, experience
If a male honeybee wants to get with a queen bee, he has to compete with legions of his brothers to do so. The victorious male bee is rewarded with something of a mixed bag. On one hand, he gets to have sex with the queen; his seed alone is passed down to the next generation. On the other hand, his genitals are rent from his body in the course of copulation, leading to a wicked case of post-coital bleed-out and death. Check this episode of Green Porno for Isabella Rossellini’s portrayal of the process.
8) Water striders
For those of you who like to spice up your sex lives by adding an element of danger, you may have found your insect equivalent in the water strider. These little insects are best known for their ability to walk on water, but their dicey sex lives is interesting.
During both courting and copulation, male water striders are known to tap their legs against the water’s surface in a pattern that purposely lures predatory fish. Scientists speculate that the risky behaviour encourages the female to mate quickly, to give the guy what he wants before she becomes fish food. Looks like horny humans aren’t the only ones capable of playing dirty for a little nookie.
9) Porcupines
Sex is a delicate act for these prickly animals. In fact, because a female could impale her lover with one quick flick of her quills, a male won’t pursue a female unless he’s damn sure she is ready and willing.
So what gets a female porcupine going? As it turns out, she likes a golden shower.
That’s right, a male will drench his lady lover in urine. If she’s not interested, she’ll whine and shake off the shower. But if she’s into it, she’ll expose her underbelly and allow the male to mount.
