Animal Mating Behaviour: Painful, Deadly And Bizarre Rituals (PHOTOS)

This is not kid-safe science, readers, so proceed accordingly. Also, if you are squeamish, it's probably not for you either. But if you have a healthy curiosity and interest in what could be deemed ultra S&M in the animal world, well, this article is most definitely for you.

Some female insects eat the males during and after mating. Some animals just expire, their purpose in life now fulfilled. Other species don't just mate - they viciously attack each other. Read on for tales that will make your own sad love stories seem like a fairy tale.

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Flatworms

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Penis fencing. That got your attention. And yes, that is the official term for it. Flatworms are hermaphrodites, meaning they don’t have a specific sex. To mate, two of them attack each other with a pair of sharp penises. Whoever scores first by stabbing the other gets to walk away from the violent one night stand scotch free. The loser is now knocked up and has to carry around and give birth to the offspring.

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Penis fencing.

That got your attention. And yes, that is the official term for it.

Flatworms are hermaphrodites, meaning they don’t have a specific sex. To mate, two of them attack each other with a pair of sharp penises. Whoever scores first by stabbing the other gets to walk away from the violent one night stand scotch free. The loser is now knocked up and has to carry around and give birth to the offspring.

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Romance

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Comments

[deweydecimal]

06:57 PM on 11/22/2010

Colony forming social insects including bees, ants and termites are almost entirely female except for the handful of male drones who may be hatched for a one-time mating when a new queen or batch of queens is readied. Not really new or exceptional to fire ants.

[OliverTwist]

08:09 AM on 11/16/2010

Last comment: editorial:

"Rituals" doesn't seem quite the right word for these behaviors.

[OliverTwist]

08:07 AM on 11/16/2010

I feel for the poor spider - who having failed to read the studies on spider behavior and morality and safe sex - presents his belly to the female, expecting, presumably, something nice, and suddenly finds himself being eaten.

[OliverTwist]

04:54 PM on 11/15/2010

These things always amuse me. The narratives about "why" these creatures do these things always causes me to imagine them beforehand sitting in a corner reading a book about the life of insects and thinking about what they might do when they get to mate.

[MJinCanada]

03:34 AM on 11/11/2010

Those are only a few. Check this out:

http://www.neatorama.com/2007/04/30/30-strangest-animal-mating-habits/

And I've read somewhere that female giraffes will occasionally just lose interest in mating and wander off, leaving the male to crash to the ground.

[Telemachus]

03:13 PM on 11/15/2010

That's what he gets for paying for her drinks up front.

[exile]

12:26 PM on 11/10/2010

"Scientists weren’t sure if the male spider
was just accidentally leaving his penis behind
as he fled from his would-be attacker."

toad palin
levi johnston
i feel ur pain
or not

[OliverTwist]

04:57 PM on 11/15/2010

The other proposed narrative where the male spider has a devious plan to deny access to other male spiders suggests this species is quite smart and able to collect the facts on his species and plan ahead. Good work that.

[Telemachus]

11:57 AM on 11/10/2010

And yet, not ONE mention of Martin Sheen.

[eric steven]

09:13 AM on 11/15/2010

nor mention of David Carradine...

[Telemachus]

03:10 PM on 11/15/2010

Touche. I probably should have said Charlie Sheen, though. Oops! :)

[Raven626]

10:48 AM on 11/10/2010

"...the male dies soon after (mating). His purpose in life is over, so he simply expires."


YAY! FIRE ANTS RULE!!!

just kidding..LOL

[OliverTwist]

04:58 PM on 11/15/2010

He never knew.

Too bad.

[GualtierREALITY]

07:42 AM on 11/10/2010

Humans and the praying mantis have one thing in common lol, there are a few females in our society that atleast try to eat the heads of there male counter part....yes i went there

[deepintheheartoftejas]

12:36 AM on 11/10/2010

Surprised no one mentioned banana slugs... the male sex organs are enormous. Sometimes during their frenetic mating rituals they become stuck together, and no amount of wiggling around will free them.

When that happens, there's only one thing to do: laboriously gnaw off the male organ. What a great mental image!

They're hermaphrodites, so the unlucky slug who took on the male role in that encounter can still mate in the future.

[TheDodoBird]

01:52 PM on 11/10/2010

Not just banana slugs, but all slugs have a very strange sexual performance. I was lucky enough to see it one night, standing outside my apartment building watching the stars, enjoying a glass of wine with my girlfriend and my cousins. We looked over, and there were two slugs suspended on a string of slime from our recycling bin. I knew what was coming, I am a biologist and have witnessed this event on video, but never in real life!

It was amazing! The slugs pushed out their milky white sex organs from the backs of their heads, and intertwined them together to form a large mass. This hung down below them as they twirled it around and around. Amazing! If only I had my camera on me!

[deepintheheartoftejas]

12:30 AM on 11/10/2010

Except for the single example of salmon, these are all arthropods. The last common ancestor we shared with them was nearly 600 million years ago. It's hardly any wonder any of their "lifestyles" is bizarre.

[Rapier]

11:00 PM on 11/09/2010

And I thought the story was about celebrity sex lives.

[Sievehead]

06:23 PM on 11/09/2010

Nature is God's way of saying "I'm crazy".

[Andrew McFarmland]

06:08 PM on 11/09/2010

Brings to mind Isabella Rossellini's green porno.
http://www.sundancechannel.com/greenporno/

[Andrew McFarmland]

06:07 PM on 11/09/2010

http://www.sundancechannel.com/greenporno/