Wild Romance - Courtship Tips From the Nature

Romance is often one of the most important pursuits in life. Getting the right partner makes you feel blessed; on the other hand the not-so-right one will make your life more miserable than hell! Learn some courtship tips from the wild today, some can be really helpful while some are hmmm……. Up to you to consider.

Rule #1: You must have a beautiful house, preferably well-furnished 

Male Bowerbird and his bower

Renowned for their unique courtship behavior, where the male bowerbird builds a bower with remarkable decorations to attract his mating partner. In courtship, the male bowerbird will perform a dance to its love-at-first-sight, at the same time presenting her the collections he has. In and around the bower, the male places different variety of brightly colored objects he has collected and has spent hours arranging. These objects may include hundreds of shells, leaves, flowers, feathers, stones, berries, and even discarded plastic items, coins, nails, rifle shells, or pieces of glass. Some of the items could be stolen objects from his neighbours! Some studies have shown that the colours combination of the collections males use on their bowers match the preferences of females. The females often will visit several bowers, watching the elaborating performances by the males, inspect the quality of the bowers and tasting the colours the males used to decorate their bowers before she consider which males to be her mate.

Rule #2:  Master the art of Seduction - Erotic but without being rude

The twelve-wired Bird of Paradise male has red iris, long black bill, rich yellow plumes along its flanks, and most uniquely from the rear of the plumes, emerge 12 blackish, wire-like filaments that give the bird its name. The males of the species really know how to “tickle” the ladies!

Bird of Paradise 

During the intimate act of courtship, other than elaborating his fantastic feathers, the male repeatedly uses his wire-like filaments from his torso to gently brush the female’s face. And apparently, the lady seems to enjoy the sensation and often put her head among the filaments as she approaches the male from rear.

Rule #3: Be a swinger….. Erm... This sounds a little way too Wrong

Let’s take a look at the ‘courtship’ (maybe we shoudn’t use this word here) of the Sea hare, they are the true swinger of the sea slug realm, and the true practitioners of Free Love. Sea hares are hermaphrodites, with both sexual organs and can act as both sexes. They mate in ‘chains’, the first sea hare acts solely as a female, and is mounted by a second sea hare, there comes the third sea hare who mounts on the second sea hare who now acts as a male to the first and female to the third. This chain continue so on down the line, till the last hare, who acts solely as a male. Things are getting a little too complicated here…

Sea hare in mating chain
Photo courtesy: Anne DuPont

Rule #4: Be a clingy boyfriend, I mean literally “CLINGY”

Living in the deep sea, the female anglerfish has a long protruding filament with a bulb to lure preys, this feature is unique to only the females. Seeking easy access to food, the male will hitch a permanent hike on a female by sinking his teeth into the female’s body and fuse with her forever! Now he is so ‘clingy’ that he has become a parasite, the only benefit from the male is, when the female need to fertilize her eggs, she has the male gonads on her ever-so-ready.

Female Anglerfish with a male attached to her back 

Rule #5: Love is a battlefield, fight with your...... what!?

Like the Sea hare, flatworm is hermaphrodite with ovaries and testes. Love is a battlefield, to the flatworms, this involved “PENIS Fencing”. (Yes, this isn’t a typo.)

During this (erm…) fencing, each flatworm tries to pierce the skin of the other using one of its penises (again, no typo here). The first who does the piercing will become the ‘male’ delivering its sperm into the other. This battlefield is serious business, as whoever becomes the ‘female’ must extend considerable energy caring for the developing eggs. 

Flatworms penis fencing 

Fighting Extinction #2 - Egyptian Tortoise, the Smallest Tortoise in Northern Hemisphere

Testudo Kleinmann, often known as Egyptian tortoise, is a critically endangered species. It is the smallest tortoise in the northern hemisphere, females larger than males. The desert-living tortoise is regconized for its high-domes, golden colored shell, which provide good camouflage for the species in desert habitats.

They become sexually mature about 10-20 years of age, the females lay their eggs in shallow bowls beneath bushes which will hatch in approximately 3-4 months time. Each reproduction cycle will give rise to 1-5 eggs. The new hatchlings are very small in sizes and can grow up to 15cm with a weight of 500grams, they can live up to 50 years.

Source: Click here

Source: Click here

The species was once found in Egypt, and now, the Egyptian tortoises are close to complete extinction there. Other than destruction of their natural habitats due to human activities, illegal traders poise another great danger to the species. Egyptian tortoise is classified under critically endangered species currently, more efforts have to be put in to prevent the slow-maturing species with few off-springs from subsequent extinction that might follow.

Fighting Extinction #1 - Kakapo, the Giant Parrot

Kakapo is one of the largest species of parrot on earth (approximately 60cm tall) which is also a flightless, nocturnal, ground-dwelling parrot found in New Zealand. The flightless kakapo is defenseless and once thrived in its New Zealand habitat as there were no natural predators. However, as kakapo was eventually hunted by the natives and introduction of predators such as cats by the new settlers, its population has almost been wiped out. And now, kakapo one of the critically endangered animal species with less than 150 individuals in the wild.

Source: Click here

Source: Click here

During mating season, males attract females with loud call and elaborate display. The slow process of reproduction resulted from late sexual maturity as males reach sexual maturity at approximately age of 5 while female around 10 and also they only start breeding when there is abundance of food supply. Average kakapo lives around 60 years, and it is not uncommon for kakapo to be nearly 100 years old.