Mating Rituals in the Animal Kingdom

Courting Nature

Mating Rituals in the Animal Kingdom

Buying flowers, offering chocolates, dipping a girl’s hair in an inkwell — we’re all familiar with the time-honored rituals of romance. But as Mother Nature shares ever so tenderly, we are not the only species to do engage in the dance of romance.

from Treehugger.com

Dusky Dolphins are current examples of the 70's hippy movement all over again. They much prefer to Make Love, Not War. These mammals live in rather promiscuous societies, or communes if you will, engaging in frequent group sex to build upon their society’s closeness as a whole. The prelude to these group acts includes chases, leaps from the water, and swimming belly to belly (sounds a little like Woodstock). Adélie Penguins live in small nests made of stone. The one thing these little mammals have a lot of is rock, so when it comes to getting on their mate’s good side, the male penguin will often bring her a carefully chosen stone as a courtship gift to enforce their bond. Does it work? Yeah, just as much as any other 3 Karat rock works for us humans!

Masked Boobies have their own brand of mating ritual. The males attract a female’s attention in much the same as the Adelie Penguin, by giving her gifts, except in addition they also offer small token of themselves in the form of feathers.

African Elephants are some of the most gentle and affectionate animals on earth. Just as a true romantic couple prefers to go everywhere holding the hand of their chosen soul mate, male and female elephants gently caress and entwine their trunks as a sign of affection and dare we say love for each other.

The Blue Bird of Paradise finds his mate their a very breathtaking courtship display. He hangs upside down from a tree branch, while rhythmically enlarging and contracting a patch of feathers on his chest. At the same time he spreads his violet-blue plumes, swaying back and forth, arching his tail feathers, and then calling to his lover softly in a low, sultry, sexy voice.

Male Mandarin Ducks have succeeded where most construction workers have not. When these guys see a lady they are interested in, they bark and whistles combined with a dramatic display of shaking, preening, and drinking. If the girl happens to see something that she likes, she calls back at her chosen man, giving him the signal she is ready to leave with him and embark on what could be described as a one-night-stand.

While many women prefer the male to make the first move, when there is nobody knocking at the door, some decide to take matters into their own hands, similar to the female Baboon. Baboons live in rather promiscuous groups where if a receptive female decides she wants to get it on, all she needs to do is shake her booty in front of her chosen mate. Before and during the consummating of the mating ritual, the female will emit a distinctive groan with her mouth closed and cheeks puffed out. In human terms, this often results in neighbor complaints and a police officer knocking at the front door during that crucial moment.

by Cara Nicole Neo

The scary thing is that you can never know. The scary thing is that he can be sitting across from you staring intently at your computer screen at ten minutes past midnight, having come straight from home two hours ago to help you fix your laptop; and you can still be wondering, worrying about the girls he could meet, the girls who might smile at him and his friends, the harmless little glass splinters of glances. The scary thing is that inadequacy isn’t glamorous, and so you try to hide it. Occasionally it escapes, crawls its treacherous little fingers out of your mouth in an unattractive, blubbering 2AM phone call. His reassurances feed its ugly little mouth just enough to fill its ugly little stomach, and it retreats, snuffling and sighing, back into the hollow of your throat. For a time. Only ever for a time, because before long it’s back again, and hungrier. And when it’s hungry, you feel the damning urge to be hungry as well. To empty yourself of everything else until you are beautiful. You see yourself, years from now — all pearlescent eyelids and inflated breasts and hard smiles that crack at certain corners — and realize, with a snatch and a thump, that it is ugly. You don’t want to be ugly, but you have this terrible, spiraling feeling that in your quest to forever stay the peachy-cheeked, dark-eyed young girl he found you as — you will end up at the opposite end of the map. Watching, from under heavy eyelids, in a form-fitting cashmere dress, as your place is taken by a newly peachycheeked, dark-eyed young girl. This haunts you. It is your greatest fear. You’re not quite sure where you got it from. TV, perhaps. Some poems, the kind that end with extolling the virtues of having a whole king-size bed to sleep in alone. No matter. The imaginary flame has kindled a real lick of flame. it spreads slowly, nibbling along the edges of paper, despite his best efforts to stop it. Most days you feel nothing except a dim gnawing, uncomfortable enough to notice, but little enough to ignore. Occasionally it yippees in a spiteful little flicker and this, you think (it feels like) is enough to break you. It’s already happening. Nothing wrong has happened between you both and already you are disintegrating, alone. The man you love is holding on to sand, and you are the grains counting down your gradual descent through his fingers. Better he had never tried to piece you together with mud and water, maybe. Better you end up back in the ocean, anonymous and unfindable where you began, bits of you settling in blue nooks everywhere. People in love do not, should not, have these thoughts, and that is the scary thing. That is the scariest thing of all.