{"id":24369,"date":"2023-02-24T18:10:28","date_gmt":"2023-02-24T17:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/?p=137456"},"modified":"2023-02-24T20:36:33","modified_gmt":"2023-02-24T19:36:33","slug":"cannibalism-barbed-penises-and-a-whole-lot-of-venom-the-8-most-brutal-animal-courtships","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/rss_feed\/cannibalism-barbed-penises-and-a-whole-lot-of-venom-the-8-most-brutal-animal-courtships\/","title":{"rendered":"Cannibalism, barbed penises and a whole lot of venom: The 8 most brutal animal courtships"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some animals pair for life. Boring. Here are some that mutilate, kill and eat each other when they mate! <\/p>

By Jules Howard\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 24 February 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

Slicing, biting, slashing, cannibalising \u2026 these are not words we would naturally associate with romance. But there is beauty and splendour to be seen in the shadier side of animal mating. <\/span><\/p>\n

Here we dive into the eight strangest courtships of the animal kingdom.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Stuck on you<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Anglerfish<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n
\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
\u00a9 Theodore W Pietsch\/University of Washington<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Some male anglerfish attach themselves to passing females, often wasting away into little more than brainless packets of sperm. This is called \u2018parabiosis\u2019, where two living organisms join together to develop a shared physiological system. Anglerfish are the only known example of parabiosis in nature.<\/p>\n

Anglerfish undergo parabiosis as a response to the vastness of the deep sea<\/a>, where meetings between the two sexes are rare and infrequent. Males bite into the first female they meet because this represents a safer choice than hedging their bets with another female, who may never come along.<\/p>\n

To find out how anglerfish achieve parabiosis, biologist Dr Thomas Boehm<\/a> and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Germany examined the DNA of 31 anglerfish specimens from 10 species.<\/p>\n

They found that key immune system genes were missing from the anglerfish species in which males and females fuse. Somehow, they have compromised their immune systems to allow for parabiosis, without suffering ill effects.<\/p>\n

Understanding how anglerfish manage this trick could have significance for medicine, increasing the ease with which transfusions and organ transplantations can take place in future.<\/p>\n

Why did it have to be snakes?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Red-sided garter snake<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n
\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
\u00a9 Huw Cordey\/Naturepl.com<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Snakes have two penises rather than just the one. Known as hemipenes, these organs allow male snakes to copulate with females from a variety of directions<\/span>. This is especially helpful to red-sided garter snakes who, during mating time, form chaotic \u2018mating balls\u2019 in which males can outnumber females by 100-to-1<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

This situation occurs because the male snakes wake from their winter sleep before females, which temporarily unbalances the sex ratio.<\/span><\/p>\n

To increase the odds of mating success, hemipenes in many reptile species have evolved complex spines that lock into place during copulation. In red-sided garter snakes, the hemipenes have a large spine that inserts into the female during mating.<\/span><\/p>\n

As impressive as hemipenes are, they are only half the story. By anaesthetising the reproductive tracts of female red-sided garter snakes, a team of zoologists discovered in 2014<\/span> that the anaesthetised females spent longer copulating than ones who were not anaesthetised<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

The finding suggests that, by contracting her genital opening and vagina, a female may be able to forcefully rebuff male advances, disrupting an unworthy partner\u2019s chances of success.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n