The Weird, Gross, and Beauty Of Mating in Animals

Mating can be funny, weird, gross, and beautiful in animals as different animals have different ways to mate for the purpose of procreation. Animals find mates they like, make those mates like them back before they can mate. Mating processes can be very different in different organisms and it started over a billion year ago. How and when is very vague but one hypothesis is clear which is it must have started from single-celled organism.

Single cell organisms needed to fix DNA damage in their cell and it was this that brought about mating. Before this, cells would use another cell's DNA to eliminate harmful mutations in them and it gave rise to Meiosis where two DNA of separate individuals combine to produce a new cell. Soon we began to have meiosis leading to the creation of much bigger cells known as sperm and eggs and soon, sexual reproduction became a thing for complex animals.

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Mating for complex animals became another must do asides hunting for food, and hiding from predators. In so many animals, competition is a must because only the fittest gets the right to mate. For birds, they put on elaborate displays with their feathers and their voices like peacocks and birds-of-paradise who puff up their feathers. Birds like the frigate birds have red balloons in their neck that they blow up during mating season.

Males have this unique characteristics thanks to the Runaway Selection where a male that s more attractive gets the chance to mate and apparently overtime transferring the characteristics to its offspring and this becomes a signal of attraction over time. The characteristics doesn't continue if it is going to cause them to be vulnerable and prevent them from reaching sexual maturity.

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Birds and mammals do not share similar characteristics. In mammals, most males are significantly larger than females and they use their size to compete for females. They can go as far as fighting with each other or show off their fitness. While some animals are interested in looks, some just love the chemistry.

They deal with chemoreception and pheromones to be precise which they use to find partners, find the best time to mate, and to know if a partner is fit to mate. These animals get this information from the Urine or other parts of the body in which the animals process the chemicals using their Jacobson's organ which is their secondary organ right above the mouth roof.

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Some animals lay their eggs and allow the males to fertilize the eggs outside them. This allows for an increased chance of survival and increases the chance of mating for every individual. The animals that fertilize their eggs outside the females lay thousands of eggs and they do so to increase the chance of a couple of infants reaching adulthood as a lot would die in the process of developing or even not make it to hatching. This is common with aquatic animals like fishes.

With internal fertilization, the embryos are better protected and allowed to develop better. Either mating and fertilization is done internally or externally, the purpose is for reproduction. It is a weird world and mating is one of he weirdest things that exists but in all, we need it to replicate and survive.

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