Glimpses on animal sex

Jan 6, 2007 08:59 GMT  ·  By

When it's about sex, animals can go over the limit.

Capercaillie males are said to lose their senses so much during courtship that they are able to peck people in order to defend their singing arena.

This is not an exception, cause erotic techniques and passion displays can largely overpass Kamasutra.

Like magic, there is a moment every year when all the animals feel a restless drive to taste the pleasures offered by the other sex.

They dress the best plumage/fur/scales, sing the best of their repertory and spread around in the air the smells of their availability for sex. The males prepare their weaponry because for most species, the privilege of acceding females is gained only through fights with the opponents, which ensure the strongest genes to the next generation.

Sometimes the fight can lead to the death of one of the combatants, like in elephant seals or hippos. In the end, with all the efforts of the males, the females are the ones to choose. And sometimes they take it all. Literally.

Like in the case of praying mantis, which starts devouring the male during the copulation (photo center). Many spider males are watched by the same peril, so, in order not to fall victims to their sweeties, they deliver to their partners a large fly, which will keep her occupied.

Among many birds, like kingfishers, offering food gifts for females by males is usual. This is a sign they are strong and healthy to get food for raising offspring. Some species maintain long friendship relations before consuming sex, like albatrosses. These large birds can have a lifespan of 50 years and a pair can pass together 3 years before ? starting action. Only when the ties are strong, there is sex.

But even small birds can be very truthful, like the African parrots called lovebirds, which are said to even die of sorrow when they lose their partner. In the case of the right whales (photo bellow), the females can suffer a real sexual molestation.

When males discover a receptive female, they surround and immobilize her. There's no escape, cause by every position, there is a penis nearby. When it's about performances, nothing overpasses wild rats that can copulate up to 400 times in 10 hours!

Lions are also hot: during the mating period, they can copulate 50 times daily, but their performances do not honor them: each copulation does not last more than 20 seconds? On the other side, black rhino spends more than 30 minutes with each sexual contact, but unfortunately, this made it a virility symbol and the animal has been hunted for its horns.

Snakes and lizards have two penises, and are used alternatively, with all the calm: rattlesnakes copulate up to 22 hours!More over, their sperm conserves for long time periods: a female can depose fertile eggs years after the last copula. Most birds (except ostriches, ducks and geese) lack a penis.

They just put in contact their cloacas and, judging for the rapidity of the process (several seconds), it seems very effective. Some animals are indeed really slow: the common toad males can spend a few days over the loin of the female till she decides to depose the eggs. When he feels her contractions, he rushes to cum in order to fertilize the eggs.

But there are some species that eliminate the sex pleasures from their reproductive plan. They do not look for physicalcontact, just the result. Females of trout or salmon just remove with their tail the sand/gravel on the riverbeds, and when they have made a little hole, they lay their eggs. The males, very alert to the event, just pass over after that to release the sperm.

More extreme is the case of octopuses, when the male detaches his penis charged by sperm cells, and this one copulates by itself with the female?Some seabrams can even be temporary hermaphrodite. Males can turn, after years of maleness, to females, when these ones scarce.

Amongst man's closest relatives, there are really no sexual taboos. Bonobos or dwarf chimps use every sexual posture on their search for sexual pleasure. They frequently masturbate and practice orgies. Everybody copulates with everybody, including individuals sexually immature. And adult males harass young females even when they are their own daughters. Chimp females give a new meaning to the word promiscuity: in some cases, they copulate 7 times continuously with 7 different males.

Some prey birds like bearded vultures form conjugal trios. The female breeds with 2 males, which share equally their duties: both copulating as food search for the chicken. They do not seem to be bothered about the offspring's precise genetics.

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