5 Interesting Animal Courtship Displays

Women may fall in love with men who bring them flowers, chocolates, and teddy bears. Well, for animals, material things are not always very exciting. Sometimes, it will take a whole performance for female animals to actually cave into the males. Here are five exciting courtship displays among animals:

Birds

Birds are beautiful—with their colorful plumage and graceful wings, who wouldn’t fall in love with a bird? But for female birds, looks are not enough. Male birds have to do a whole song-and-dance performance in order to attract the opposite sex. Albatrosses use their large wings to flap and dance around while trying to tap their beak on to their prospective mate. Red-crowned cranes almost look like they do the capoeira when flirting with their mate. The male blue manakins perform together to attract a group of females. To learn more about the elaborate courtship dances among birds, check this out. 

Snails

How snails show their love for another is not going to fly among people. When a snail finds a partner, they stab them with the appendage found on their head. It is known as the love dart. The stabbing process releases sperm to the partner. In people, that would be considered rape. But the snail kingdom has its own mating ritual that people couldn’t relate to. Perhaps they find human courtship just as weird. Snails use the pronoun “they” because they are hermaphrodites. 

Black widow spider

Mating among black widow spiders is extremely dangerous for the males. The female black widow is generally bigger. She usually eats her male counterpart during sex. That is why the insect is named black widow. But it is their nature, so the male doesn’t fight the female. It would seem that intimacy becomes longer if the male allows himself to be eaten by the female black widow. The longer the sex, the more sperm to fill the female. In other words, the male black widow sacrifices himself in order to ensure more black widows in the future. His sexual suicide will not be in vain.

Porcupines

Female porcupines are only in heat for a maximum of half a day every year. So their male counterparts don’t really have a lot of leeways to mate with them. As such, the males have to go to great lengths in order to copulate. It doesn’t sound pretty tough—if you’re human. When a female porcupine is in heat, the male porcupines can smell it. The first male to see the female should immediately mark her by drenching her in his urine. The urine is emitted through “a high-speed projectile,” according to experts. 

Mice

Do you know how Mickey Mouse loves to sing? Well, it turns out it is not something that is just made for the animated program. Mice really do love to sing, especially if the male is trying to woo his own Minnie Mouse. According to researchers, a male mouse would sing a unique song that is described as high-pitched. It has to be a unique song or the female wouldn’t bother with him. 

There you have it, five different animals and five different courtship styles. There is really a lot to learn about animals so it is important that people do their job in preserving them and their habitat. This is exactly what Manakin Dance aims to achieve in its organization. The company sells T-shirts, hoodies, and bags in a bid to educate people about the environment while also directly helping out in terms of wilderness protection. A tenth of the profit that the company makes will go to the World Wildlife Fund.