Animals With Mating Habits That Are Crazy AF

By Editorial Staff in Nature On 17th September 2016

Every living animal and organism needs to do three things to ensure that their species continues to live on, eat food, escape predators, and reproduce. Every living thing has a ritual for mating, as with humans, we connect, go on dates, hope everything works out well and eventually have sexual relations. Getting intimate is one of the things that make humans and some other species a little different, because for some creatures, their mating habits are just weird and creepy and make the ritual we know as hooking up seem lame.

#1 Hippos

The African safari is known for its many exotic animals such as lions, zebras, monkeys, elephants, hyenas, and rhinos. However, the animal that stands out as the weirdest of all is the hippopotamus. They appear very calm and docile, and they are at times, but the hippo is responsible for more deaths in Africa than any other animal. When it comes to mating they are not so much as a gangbuster as they are when protecting their territory and offspring. The male hippo twirls his tail in a circular motion while spraying urine and defecating in a certain area to attract the females.

#2 Argentine Lake Ducks

Ducks are so cute and also tasty, and you probably don't associate a duck with being aggressive during its mating season, but they are very aggressive birds when it comes to who they want to have a hook-up with. Ducks have corkscrew shaped genitalia which spirals in opposite directions, making the mating a little weird to start with. But what makes the Argentine Duck even more creepy is that is penis is over 17 inches long! It uses the long penis to grab a female by literally lassoing them with it and pulling them close. Then they also use their long reproductive organ as a brush to get rid of the semen of another male that may be lingering.

#3 Praying Mantises

They're creepy looking and the world is blessed with over 2,000 different species of praying mantises, all of which are predators who survive off of other insects. The mantis has the strangest mating ritual ever, one that some humans should be wary of. A male mantis will perform a courtship dance in order to gain the affections of a female who then places the male on top of her back to mate if she is interested. While he is still in the process of physically mating with her, she will chomp off his head and begin eating away at him, which causes him to thrust more and keep the reproduction going as long as possible until he dies.

#4 Jellyfish

Jellyfish have lived in the Earth's oceans for 700 million years, making them one of the oldest species on the planet. The jellyfish may look like a glob of floating mucus but it actually has a brain as well as digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems. When they mate, the male produces sperm and leaves it to float in the water as he swims away. When a female senses the floating sperm she swims up to it with her mouth open and catches it. And you thought oral sex was gross.

#5 Porcupines

Actually a large rodent, the porcupine is found on 5 different continents and is widely recognizable by its long quills that protect it from predators. It's funny to picture just how these creatures would mate with such sharp quills covering almost their entire bodies, but they actually get it on quite easily. The female is the boss and when she is ready to mate it's up to the male to figure it out or he is left waiting while she moves elsewhere to find someone who knows what he is doing. Once the male figures it out, he urinates all over the female. If she rolls over and exposes her belly, she's ready and willing and they mate repeatedly for several hours. However, if she has shaken all of the urine off of her body it means the male needs to look elsewhere to get his groove on.

#6 Soapberry Bugs

These buggers are just not into one-night stands. The soapberry bug is a subspecies of over 100,000 tree bugs in the insect world. It lives off of the leaves and seeds of the soapberry plant in North and South America. When a pair of soapberry bugs get together, they actually remain stuck to each other's backsides for up to eleven days and do not let go until it is time for the female to lay eggs. After she has laid the eggs the male falls off and sticks around a few days until they try mating all over again. And you thought you were in a clingy relationship.

#7 Garter Snakes

Snakes come in thousands of different shapes, colors, and sizes and have been on this earth for about 100 millions of years. Most snakes mate pretty normally but the garter snake is a little odd. After hibernating during the cold season they wake up full of vim and vinegar and they require sex, and lots of it. They have what humans refer to as an orgy, mating with several other snakes in the same session all at once. Dozens of male garters pile on top of the female to form a 'mating ball'. While in this ball, every male has his penis out while looking for the female, and although they all try, only one snake manages to successfully mate with the female, while the others just keep slithering around them. When on is finished he slips away while another snake tries to find the spot.

#8 Flatworms

The flatworm belongs to the same family of soft-bodied invertebrates that has existed on the planet for at least 270 million years, and they are nothing like the earthworms you find in your backyard. However, they are not like any worm you have ever seen before. These worms are parasites that are dangerous to humans and other animals. Flatworms are neither male nor female. When two flatworms get together to mate, they fight each other in a duel-like scenario, except the duel is fought with each flatworm using their own rather sharp penis as a sword. The duel lasts until one flatworm is stabbed, and the one which is stabbed then becomes the de facto female, due to the fact that they absorb the winner's semen and get fertilized. Talk about rough sex!

#9 Bed Bugs

One of the worst creatures living on the planet, except for maybe cockroaches, bedbugs can infest your home in just a week. They feed on the blood of mammals and can spread parasites and germs. They have no mating ritual. Instead, a male simply walks, or creeps, up to a female then stabs her with his penis to inject semen into her circulatory system. The female survives because she has a special area in her abdomen made especially for this mating, and the male, often mistaken for a female by other bugs, does not have this and dies when stabbed by another male.

#10 Honey Bees

Honey bees are very important to our ecosystem because they not only produce delicious honey but they fly around and pollinate our flowers and food supply. They live in a hive which is a small community of about 1,200 bees that has one female, or queen bee. Worker bees actually do the pollinating and honey production, and drone bees whose purpose is to mate with the queen. They are literally just bred to breed. During their mating process, their genitals drop off when the deed is complete, killing the drone almost instantly. The genitals remain within the queen so that she can continue to be fertilized by the deceased drone long time after its death.

#11 Anglerfish

A lot of fish are scary looking and some are incredibly hideous, but the angelfish is absolutely beautiful as far as fish go. They have survived for over 100 million years, and their appearance has not really changed that much, but what might have changed over all that time is the way that they reproduce. The male is smaller in size than the female and when they are still young the male will bite into a female and latch onto her until he dies. This process takes some time but after they do kick the bucket they detach, leaving behind a small piece of themselves which the female uses to fertilize her eggs.

#12 Garden Snails

Snails are actually pretty intense at mating despite their bad rap for being sluggish and slow. When it comes time for a pair of snails to mate, they have to decide which one will be the male and female, and once that is done, the pair engage in biting, stroking and fondling each other for up to six hours. During all of this crazy mating, a mucus begins to build up inside the snail and when they've had enough, mucus-covered darts shoot out from sacs located behind the snail's eyestalks. The darts are filled with calcium which increases the amount of semen the female receives once they actually begin doing the hippity-bippity. But snails are blind, so it takes even more time for the darts to hit the spot it is supposed to hit, making their mating ritual seem like forever.

#13 Argonauts

The first time and the very last time. The argonaut is a shelled marine animal that resembles a swimming clam but is, in fact, a type of octopus. The male of the species has a single special tentacle called a hectocotylus which contains their sperm, and when he finds a mate, he releases the tentacle from his body and it travels towards the female for fertilization. The male then swims away, never having to worry about mating again, because he is unable to. Once they send their hectocotylus out they are forever unable to reproduce since that is their only sexual organ.

#14 Banana Slugs

A slug is basically a snail without a home of its own. You've probably seen them in your garden. They are slimy and gross looking creatures that leave a trail of slime as they slowly move along. the North American bananas slug is yellow in color and lives off of vegetation. They are both the same sex, so when a pair comes together to mate, they decide who will be the male and female, even though both still come equipped with a penis the same length of their bodies. After mating, the female will bite off the male's penis making him virtually a female slug. She will then go on to find another male to mate with, continuing the cycle.

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