Snail pace

 

It may be slow, but there is nothing dull about the sex life of the garden snail. Foreplay is an up to 6 hour mating tango, each snail circling the other many times. Tentacles touch, and they nibble each other’s lips in what has got to be one of the world’s slimiest kisses. Well equipped, they are hermaphrodites, having both male and female sexual organs. And that means that mating is a double act. The male parts of one snail mate with the female parts of the other simultaneously. Before mating takes place each snail fires a ‘love’ dart into the other, which stops its partner from digesting all the protein rich sperm. The female part of each snail can even store sperm for several years before using it to fertilise eggs.

 

Squid in drag

 

Squid do it in vast aggregations called leks, more common in the bird world. Males gather to strut their stuff in a small area while females cruise the edges looking for the most desirable. A coordinated ballroom dance follows with male and female changing body patterns, colours and displays. Eventually the pair descend to the bottom to lay eggs and fertilise them.  But some

cunning male cephalopods left on the sidelines take an unusual step.  These sneaker males dress up one half of their bodies as a female (to display to the successful male who will not see him as a threat) and the other masquerades as a male.  Just as the happy couple are about to lay eggs he/she sneaks in and deposits his sperm packet in the female’s mouth, winning the day.

 

Date rape in your bed tonight

 

For female dust mites, sex is a brutal affair.  The male produces a sex pheromone (a powerful hormone that drugs and paralyses her).   He then jumps on to her back and attaches special suckers firmly to her.  The helpless female is immobilised while he has his way with her uninterrupted.  Once he has inseminated her, he abandons her, but it will take up to half an hour for her to recover from the effects of the drug and be able to move off.  You might wonder how you could miss all this action going on in your bed, but since it would take over 70 dust mite couples to cover a pin head it’s all pretty small scale.

 

Fatal attraction

 

A traditional dinner and a date comes with a twist in the world of spiders.  The male often ends up as dinner for the female of the species.  First though, he must find her by following a trail of scent.  Nursery spiders come prepared with a gift-wrapped present of food, the bigger and more complicated the parcel the better for the male.  As the female is occupied with unwrapping her present, he jumps on board, fertilises her, and if he is lucky runs off.  If he is not quick enough, he ends up as lunch but can console himself that his sacrifice will go to feed his offspring.  He should count himself lucky, 80% of male spiders never even meet a female.

 

Explosive love

 

Male honeybees explode after they ejaculate into the female and leave their penises behind, trying to prevent her from mating with anyone else.  Even courtship is pretty tough, as he has to out fly hundreds or even thousands of competitors to mate with the virgin queen.  He will not be alone in succeeding, and later mates will pull out their predecessor’s penis before mating.  The queen collects up to 90 million sperm from several mates in this way, and will store up to 7 million mixed sperm to fertilise her eggs for the rest of her life.

 

Free love

 

Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have been recorded trying to copulate with seals, sharks, turtles, eels, rocks and even humans, these animals are not fussy when it comes to mating. Females call the shots when it comes to deciding whether to initiate mating and will mate with many different males. Males reach an age where they are sexually mature at 10 or 12 years and hang out in gangs of other boys.  They form close relationships with their male pals, and often having sex with them in a move that some scientists believe reinforces their bonds.  Pairs of male pals often get together to follow a female, swimming alongside her to keep her from other males.  Both may have sex with the female and courtship involves a lot of posing, rubbing of bodies, nuzzling, teeth raking (along her skin) and noisy jaw clapping.

 

 

Sex changes

 

Clownfish are pretty versatile little fish.  They live happily in mixed family groups of up to a dozen.  Only the dominant female who is the largest fish, and her partner male breed, laying their eggs at the base of their anenome home. The males look after the babies for a change, guarding and aerating the developing eggs. The big female is aggressive and stops all the other fish who are born male, from becoming female.  But if the lone female in charge of her harem of men comes a cropper, the biggest male changes into a girl.  Not so difficult, considering he is already equipped with some unused female sexual organs.

 

Showing off

 

Male bowerbirds go to extraordinary lengths the impress the females.  He builds a two sided structure called the bower, some species. Collecting and arranging anything from parrot feathers, to coloured berries and pebbles in intricate patterns under massively complex woven roofs.  Some species even colour the interior with a mixture of bird spit and leaf tissue for wallpaper.  Rearrange any item and the birds go spare.  The picky females will only mate with the guy with the best collection.  The bower is not a nest, only a setting for seduction where he displays his feathers, poses and dances to attract the girls.

 

Spiny love

 

Porcupines have to be very, very, careful when mating as you can imagine.  The female is only receptive for about four hours a year, but on the big day the male rises up on his hind legs proudly displaying his erection.  When he gets to within 2 metres he soaks her in porcupine wee.  Even this is pretty amazing, as males of most species cannot urinate while having an erection.  At this point some females just run away, but if she feels like it, she will raise her tail, exposing her spine free underside.  Sex with an inexperienced female can be dangerous as she doesn’t always lower all of her spines and an excited male can be injured. If all goes well, the male will mount her and have sex with his paws raised in the air to avoid being stabbed.

 

Battle of the sexes

 

Three tonne rhino couples slam into each other at thirty miles an hour, repeatedly head butting each other, snorting and sparring with their horns.  Not surprisingly the would be boy and girl friend often abandon their attempts to get to know each other better and retire injured.  If the male is still standing after a few crashes like this, the female will allow the courtship to go further and the male inserts his lightning bolt shaped penis into the female.  Powdered rhino horn commands a high price in the markets of Asia as a prized but probably ineffective aphrodisiac.  The trade endangers all rhino species.