For Valentine's Day, Live Science gathers together some of the more extravagant and outlandish courtship rituals in the animal kingdom.
Once the females start to show up, the rituals begin. Watching the birds dance, one can see it’s a cooperative endeavor. One bird leads and the other must follow. Sometimes the birds quickly tap their beaks together making a loud, hollow sound. Other times one will throw its head ...
The mating rituals of various species of wild ducks often involve elaborate dances, calls, and colorful feather displays as auditioning, ornately-plumaged males try to woo discerning females. Mallard ducks (Anas platyrhynchos) are the most common wild duck in North America and many other areas of...
Avian courtship displays can involve extremely strange rituals that exemplify how sexual selection can promote the exaggeration and diversity of communicative signals in animals. In general, conspicuous morphological ornamentation and a physically challenging display performance reflect individual quality or condi...
Avian courtship displays can involve extremely strange rituals that exemplify how sexual selection can promote the exaggeration and diversity of communicative signals in animals. In general, conspicuous morphological ornamentation and a physically challenging display performance reflect individual quality or condi...
ritual --- a series of actions which people regularly carry out in a particular situation, because it is the custom to do so Our country has many rituals of greeting, farewell and celebration. habitue --- (fml or literary) a person who regularly visits a particular place Habitues of th...
and complex mating rituals often are found in these species. All frogs with internal fertilization exceptAscaphusandMertensophryneuse cloacal apposition to transfer sperm. Although the tuataraSphenodonhas rudimentary hemipenes, cloacal apposition is used to transfer sperm. Males of other reptiles, the ...
A ‘lek’ is an aggregation of males gathered to engage in competitive displays and courtship rituals, to entice visiting females who are surveying prospective partners to mate with (Fiske et al., 1998). Males of ‘lekking’ species are characterized by highly developed and spectacular mating ...
lesser bird-of-paradiseA lesser bird-of-paradise (Paradisaea minor) with a yellow band around its left leg perching on a tree branch. Birds-of-paradise occur inNew Guineahighlands and on nearby islands; species calledmanucodesandriflebirdsare found also inAustralia. The largestmanucodeis the 45...