By CHIPANGO KAMBOYI –
THE term mating s used to describe the ways in which animal societies act and the various traits they display in relation to sexual behaviour.
Animal sexual behaviour takes many different forms, even within the same species.
The mating rituals of some animals are wonderfully bizarre.
For example, in most instances animal sexual behavior/mating involves struggle between many males and also, prior to mating female animals select males only if they are strong and able to protect themselves or not.
For example, if a male animal fights against another male animal of the same species then the animal that wins the fight will have the chance to mate with the higher number of females and also he will pass on his genes to his offspring, who pass on their genes to the next offspring in line: did you know that some insects’ genitals explode during sex/mating?
Or that some fish can change gender (hermaphroditism)? Other animals vigorously drag each other? All these plus many others behaviors and displays by animals are done in order to ensure successful mating between two animals of some species and are of the opposite sex.
The following are the mating behaviors and displays of some wild animals;
Honey Badger
Honey badgers are solitary animals with the male and female living separately in different locations. Meeting of the separate sexes usually and mostly happens in the mating season.
When the male honey badger meets with the female honey badger, the male grabs with its mouth the female’s neck and begins to vigorously drag it around.
The female Honey Badger accepts a mating partner only after several days of thoughtful consideration and are usually reluctant in the first instance to mating thus it is for this reason that the aggressive approach by the males will stimulate them for mating and also induce ovulation. The act of mating is prolonged and a repeated process.
Porcupine
Perhaps a question one would ask is, how do porcupines mate? If you answer: “carefully,” you’d only be half right because it is so “strikingly”.
Indeed, porcupines have a very eccentric mating habit: First of all, female porcupines are interested in sex only about 8 to 12 hours in a year!
Second, to court a female during the short mating season, a male porcupine stands up on his hind legs, waddles up to the female, and then sprays her with a huge stream of urine from as far as 6 feet away, and soaks his would-be mating partner from head to foot.
If the female wasn’t impressed, she’ll scream and shake off the urine.  But, if she is ready, then she’ll rear up to expose her quill-less underbelly and let the male mount her from the behind (that’s the only safe position for porcupines!).
Once mating begins, the female is greedy; she forces the male to mate many times until he is thoroughly exhausted.
If he gets tired too quickly, she will leave him for another male.
Warthog
A warthog is a wild member of the pig family that lives in grassland, savanna, and woodland in Sub-Saharan.
The male is called a boar, the female a sow and the young piglets.
The mating system is described as “overlap promiscuity”.
It is due to the males having ranges (home) overlapping several females and the daily behaviour of the female being unpredictable. Boars employ two mating strategies during the rut, namely the staying tactic and, roaming tactic.
With the “staying tactic”, a boar will stay and defend certain females or a resource valuable to the female. In the “roaming tactic” boars seek out estrous sows (i.e. females ready to mate) and compete for them.
Boars will wait for sows to emerge outside their burrows. A dominant boar will displace any other boar that will try to court/mate his female. When a sow leaves her den, the boar will try to demonstrate his dominance and then follow her before copulation. For the “staying tactic”, monogamy, female-defensepolygyny or resource-defense polygyny is promoted while the “roaming tactic” promotes scramble-competition polygyny.
African Elephant
The mating season is short and females are only able to conceive for a few days each year. She will detach herself from the herd. The scent of the female elephant in heat (or estrus) attracts the male and she also uses audible signals to attract the male.
As the female can usually outrun the male, she does not have to mate with every male that approaches her. The male initiates the courtship and the female ignores him for several minutes. He then stops and starts again.
Elephants display a range of affectionate interactions, such as nuzzling, trunk intertwining, and placing their trunks in each other’s mouths.
In a rarely observed display of his affection, he may drape his trunk outside of his tusks during the ritual and the interactions may last for 20–30 minutes and do not necessarily result in the male mounting the female, though he may demonstrate arousal during the ritual.
The female elephant is not passive in the ritual and uses the same techniques as the male.
The encounters are analogous to heterosexual bouts, one male often extending his trunk along the other’s back and pushing forward with his tusks to signify his intention to mount.
Honey Bee: Exploding Testicles
A virgin queen that survives to adulthood without being killed by her rivals will take a mating flight with a dozen or so male drones (out of tens of thousands eligible bachelors in the colony).
But don’t call these drones lucky because during mating, their genitals explode and snap off inside the queen!
Strange as it is, this actually makes evolutionary sense: the snapped-off penis acts as a genital plug to prevent other drones from fertilizing the queen.
But tell that to the dead drone whose penis just exploded. It should be noted that this strategy is so successful that it is apparently employed by other species of animals, such as the male wasp spider.
Hyena
Female hyenas are actually bigger and stronger than the males, in fact are definitely much more aggressive than the males.
Extraordinarily, they (female hyenas) even have testicles. A female hyena has a pseudopenis, basically an enlarged clitoris that they can erect at will.
To mate, the meeker male has to insert his penis into her pseudopenis. That’s difficult for the males, but still nothing compared to the female having to give birth through a penis.
Sniffing of genital parts by both the male and female is also another form of behaviour that characterizes mating, this however puts the mating pair at high risk as they expose the most delicate body parts (the genitals) to the most dangerous body part i.e. the mouth.
Gorilla
Who said that violence is the only way to solve fights over food or territory? Instead of fighting, gorillas mate (have sex)! Actually, their whole societal structure seems to revolve around mating. Gorillas use sex as greetings, a mean of solving disputes, making up for fights, and as favors in exchange for food.
They tongue kiss, engage in oral sex, mutual masturbations, have face-to-face genital sex and even have a strange “penis fencing” ritual! Over time, gorillas have evolved ways to reduce violence that permeate their entire society. They show us that the evolutionary dance of violence is not inexorable”.
Once the feelings of the mating pair are successfully synchronized, the male mounts on the female in only a few seconds and the process is repeated a few times.
Bowerbird
To attract a mate, the male bowerbird builds an amazingly complex structure called a bower. It is made of twigs and often shaped like a small hut. The male bird then decorates his “bachelor pad” bower with a variety of objects as gifts: flowers, feathers, stones, and even bits of discarded plastics and glass. Hundreds of pieces are carefully arranged in monochromatic themes (i.e. all blue items).
The bird is so anal that it will get really angry if you mess up its pile (say, by putting one differently colored pebble in its pile).
The male bowerbird spends hours sorting and arranging things. In fact, it will break its focus only to go to different male bowers to steal stuff and mess the place up!
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