Frogs in Scotland are being told to get a room, and for the good of the species, earth-conscious volunteers are helping them. As part of the Action Earth campaign, volunteers have constructed what they describe as an underground beehive to provide a safe place for frogs to mate, since their usual mating location—near ponds or other bodies of water—leaves them vulnerable to predators like foxes and herons.
Guests at the frog hotel, an enclosed, two-tiered space made from wood and recycled materials, are first greeted with a complimentary snack in the compost cafe, where insects and bees abound. They are then led up a ramp into the “sleeping area,” where they can, er, socialize to their hearts’ content, safe from attack and left only in the company of other frogs—up to 20 of them at a time.
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An Australian life scientist has been watching prawn sex tapes for research.
After observing that captive black tiger prawns tend to mate far less than their counterparts in the wild, Gay Marsden, a researcher at Queensland University of Technology, set up infrared cameras to see if she could determine a reason for the discrepancy. For two months, she watched how prawns behave in captivity and made one major discovery: Unlike prawns in the wild—or even wild-born prawns who are then moved into captivity—the ones under her surveillance were simply not into sex.
Like the shrimp industry, prawn populations are facing increasing environmental threats, and the aquaculture industry would rather breed prawns in captivity than in the wild, where they are vulnerable to disease. Wild prawns breed prolifically, but because they are often kept in high-density ponds, an entire population can be wiped out by a single virus. Captive-born prawns’ lack of interest in sex, then, poses a serious problem for business. (more…)
The details of animal mating can be ruthless, calculated, and remarkably graphic. But it’s a process that must be done for every creature, including the market squid, or Loligo opalescens, which lives—and breeds—along the Pacific coast. Over at Slate, oceanographer Miriam Goldstein has a list of techniques necessary for the foot-long invertebrate to mate successfully—which also means successful eating for the sharks, dolphins, sea lions, and scores of other aquatic creatures who make them a regular lunch. As with just about all marine life, the squid are currently being fished to the brink, making it all the more necessary that their short period of amorousness, which begins this month, comes to fruition.
So just how does a squid have sex, anyway? According to Goldstein:
During mating, the male’s sperm-delivery tentacle grabs a package of sperm, called a spermatophore, from under his mantle, the hatlike covering over the pointed end of the squid. He slips his tentacle under the female’s mantle and deposits the spermatophore next to her oviduct. When she lays the eggs, they brush by the spermatophore and are fertilized.
The steps that males can take to up their reproductive chances range from positioning themselves at the bottom of the sea/orgy to turning their tentacles bright red to intimidate other suitors to “spooning,” or sticking close to a fertilized female to make sure another male doesn’t swoop in at the last minute.
Related:
Disco: In Competitive Sex, Male Butterflies Employ “Dipstick Method”
Disco: Internet Dating a New Option for Zoo Animals
Disco: Bizarro Animal Sex Story of the Day
Image: Flickr / ourmanwhere
