Which of the weird courtship behaviors in the animal world breaks your imagination?

Spring has come, everything is reviving, and it is the mating season for animals.

Every year's breeding season is a big drama. In order to achieve the reproduction KPI, they begin to carefully plan their courtship. After all, most animals need to have a partner before they can have babies.

However, finding a mate is not an easy task for them, and they go to great lengths to find a mate.

In order to attract female pufferfish, male pufferfish will swim to the bottom of the water and slap the sand with their fins to form a very symmetrical pattern. For the sake of beauty, they sometimes find some shells to break and fill in the concave areas of the pattern.

Image source: bing images

Once the project begins, the puffer fish will spend time every day designing and modifying the pattern. Usually, it takes a puffer fish six to nine days to make a pattern.

Next, the male pufferfish will enter a waiting state. If a female likes a certain pattern, it will find the maker of the pattern and mate and lay eggs with her in the center.

Scientists also found that the more grooves and the more complex the shape of the pattern, the greater the possibility of attracting the opposite sex. Those who do not appreciate the pattern can only consider themselves unlucky and end up working in vain.

The Australian quoll is small, with a pink nose and white spots on its back. It's very cute, but they are crazy about love.

When the breeding season comes, the little heads of Australian quolls are almost filled with one voice, which is "go mate".

Once the thought comes to their mind, they will immediately set off on a path of "suicide".

Image source: science aiert

Why is it called a "suicidal" road? In order to find a mate for mating, they must walk to find a female.

All male quolls understand how fierce the competition is, so in order to find females earlier and gain more time for mating, they will give up rest and sleep.

Data shows that male quolls rest an average of only 8% of the breeding season, while females rest 24%.

A male quoll named Moimoi, who was part of a study at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, walked 10.4 kilometers overnight in search of a mate, a very long distance for such a small animal.

After a night of trekking without achieving the results it wanted, Moimoi did not hesitate but continued to move forward to look for every possible opportunity.

Although Moimoi was in very bad condition due to overwork and couldn't see clearly at that time.

Image source: science aiert

Usually male quolls can only live for one breeding season, while females can live for about four breeding seasons. So it is not an exaggeration to say that they are courting with their lives.

Sea flatworms look a lot like sea slugs, but they are very different.

The body is flat like a freshly rolled dumpling wrapper, with no respiratory or circulatory system, and only a small opening for eating and excreting.

Such a simple creature has come into human attention because of its bizarre courtship and mating behaviors.

Image source: Wikipedia

Sea flatworms are hermaphrodites, each of which has both male and female reproductive organs. This is not surprising in itself. In the animal kingdom, hermaphroditism is not uncommon, but sea flatworms always struggle over who is the father and who is the mother in this relationship, and will fight over this issue.

Fighting requires weapons. Sea flatworms are soft all over, but do you think they have no fighting power? They are skilled in using their male reproductive organs to fight.

Image source: Zhihu @Rara

So in the water, two sea flatworms in their reproductive period, on the one hand, try to pierce each other's epidermis to complete fertilization, and on the other hand, they have to be careful not to be pierced by the other's genitals, otherwise they will be the ones to bear the responsibility of reproduction.

It's like fencing, but sometimes both parties are both the father and the mother.

The great bustard is one of the largest and heaviest flying birds. It eats a wide variety of foods and has wild ways of courting mates.

When the breeding season comes, the appearance of the male Great Bustard will change. White fine feathers will grow on the outside of the throat, which looks like the white beard of an elder, giving it a sense of maturity and stability.

And their way of courtship is to boldly show off their "chrysanthemum" area.

Image source: blogspot

When a male great bustard is in heat, it will lift its tail feathers upwards, making it look like it is sticking its butt up, in order to expose more white feathers.

In their courtship rules, the more white feathers a male shows and the whiter they are, the more he will be appreciated by females.

In order to make its feathers appear thicker, the male bird will lift its tail feathers as high as possible to show off its full strength, and will also puff up the feathers on its neck and chest to make itself look stronger.

Image source: Great Bustard Group

After preparing for this, the male bird will court the female bird by dancing around the female bird. The female bird will carefully examine the male bird's white feathers. If interested, the female bird will peck at them with her beak to help groom them, indicating that she agrees to the marriage.

Image source: Carolina Bravo et al. / PLoS ONE (2014)

It can be seen that animals spend as much time as we humans on finding a mate.

Although the courtship methods of some animals may seem funny to us, whether through displaying themselves, building nests, competing fairly or even sacrificing their lives, primitive instincts are driving them to try their best to pass on their genes to the next generation to the greatest extent possible.

References:

1.This Small Australian Marsupial Is Quite Literally Dying For Sex（https://www.sciencealert.com）

2.Resting disparity in quoll semelparity: examining the sex-linked behaviors of wild roaming northern quolls (Dasyurus hallucatus) during breeding season

(https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.221180)

3.Animal Attraction: 5 Unique Courtship Behaviors In The Animal Kingdom（https://focusingonwildlife.com）

4.Wikipedia <Otis tarda, Sea Flatworm, pufferfish>

Author: Fish

Winner of the Silver Award for Outstanding Science Popularization Works of China Science Writers Association

For those who love steamed fish head, spicy fish head and other fish head

Editor: Guru