A couple of months ago, the Twitter hashtag #JunkOff got biologists to post photos that displayed the extravagant weirdness of plant and animal genitalia. Yesterday, evolutionary geneticist Tom Houslay dared them to write about what animals actually do with their junk.
COMPETITION: What's the coolest/weirdest sex-related adaptation, behaviour, mating system in the animal world? That's right: it's a #HumpOff
— RealScientists (@realscientists) October 1, 2015
And if there’s one thing I know from years of Biology department picnics, it’s how biologists love to talk about their favorite animals’ bizarre sexual habits. Over the course of the day, the thread was a master class in animal sexual behaviors, covering habits that made flatworm penis jousting or fruit bat cunnilingus seem tame. Like the way male fig wasps mate through a tiny hole in the wall of the fig (they’re both inside the fruit, but he’s outside her brood chamber, and she’s inside).
Male fig wasps can mate with virgin females *before* they even emerge from their chambers! #HumpOff pic.twitter.com/Js6lNylbiZ
— RealScientists (@realscientists) October 1, 2015
Or how male anglerfish fuse to the first female they find, becoming little more than a sac of testes that she can use as needed.
.@realscientists Male anglerfish melding with the female is pretty weird #Humpoff http://t.co/GgvuVHL76s pic.twitter.com/WYB37ZOEDo
— Damien Hurrell (@DamienHurrell) October 1, 2015
Or the traumatic hypodermic insemination habits of bedbugs.
https://twitter.com/embed/status/649590164273020928
Or the way katydids handcuff their genitals together as they copulate.
Bushcrickets get into kinky bondage with handcuff-shaped genitals…. #humpoff @realscientists http://t.co/mUdVfcvLC6
— James Gilbert (@james_gilbert) October 1, 2015
Or the insects that offer up their wings to their mates as a meal as they screw.
Want to see it in action? Here's a video of mating haglids, from Kevin Judge https://t.co/sl8IE7SuEL #HumpOff
— RealScientists (@realscientists) October 2, 2015
Or the butterflies with vaginas that chew.
@realscientists yep, here's the vagina dentata in your friendly neighborhood Cabbage White butterfly: pic.twitter.com/blGXeuVGey
— Nate Morehouse (@zapkapow) October 1, 2015
The lengths to which some animals will go to keep their mates to themselves also impresses.
#HumpOff is more than humping – male hermits guard females for weeks, sometimes taking them out for meals on-the-go. pic.twitter.com/FOOcyiDqCw
— P. Sean McDonald (@pseanmc) October 2, 2015
#HumpOff female Green Spoonworm sucks up her mate, carries him in a sac for rest of his life https://t.co/Lvcxc60uLW pic.twitter.com/B5bkraLMzT
— 「VεεLoΧΧγ・BITΞƧ」 (@The_Episiarch) October 2, 2015
And so does the sheer stamina and single-mindedness of some animals, which may breed to exhaustion, or in the case of the antechinus, physical disintegration.
Top male #sagegrouse are master humpers, can mate with dozens of hens in a day and > 1 in a minute. #HumpOff pic.twitter.com/SpTLJzdiTo
— Alan Krakauer (@alan_krakauer) October 2, 2015
And here is a photo of some exhausted wolverine. Growliest #HumpOff pic.twitter.com/UVwgAZPT2S
— Nell 🐦 (@pakasuchus) October 1, 2015
.@realscientists of course, for a real #Humpoff you can't beat the antechinus humping itself to death http://t.co/RWp8hrYuax
— Damien Hurrell (@DamienHurrell) October 1, 2015
You can find even more ways that animals are making the next generation at #HumpOff.
UPDATE: Correction added to fig wasp reproductive habits: they’re both inside the fig, but she’s in a brood chamber and he’s outside it.
Top image from pakasuchus via Twitter.
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