The Mating Game

An STD-free Drake sports a bright yellow bill. It's a signal to the ladies that he's disease free and apparently ready to get jiggy-with-it.

University of Oslo researchers have determined that bright yellowed-colored bills indicate that males are disease-free and are highly attractive to the females because they instinctively know he's safe for sex. The full study was published in Biology Letters by the Royal Society Publishing and you can view an abstract here.

Perhaps one of the most remarkable mating rituals is the Peacock Spider dance. The tiny jumping spider is a native of Australia. The male, a brightly colored spider, fans its tail and performs a dance for the female. You can view the video here.

So it would appear that bright colors and jumping dances attract mates. Even recently, a team from the University of Queensland in Australia, discovered that the normally quiet koalas get noisy when it's time to find a mate. Male emit a deep, growling bellow to signal to the girls that they are in the vicinity.

According to National Geographic,

"Male hippos will actually fling their feces to convey their reproductive health." I don't know about you, but if I was a female hippo and some guy starts throwing his feces at me, I'm leaving.

In the ocean, there is the male anglerfish that attaches itself to the female and lives off of her like a parasite, fertilizing her until she lays her eggs. Won't touch that one.

Last but not least is the spiky porcupine. The male porcupine showers the female with a long stream of urine before mating with her.

Seems to me that between the male porcupine and hippo, I'm glad that I am human or at the very least, already married.

Or maybe it would be better to just be a duck!

Sources:

http://science.discovery.com/top-ten/2009/mating-ritual/mating-ritual-10.html

http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/search?fulltext=duck+bills&submit=yes&andorexactfulltext=and&x=0&y=0

http://www.seasky.org/deep-sea/atlantic-hagfish.html

http://www.jyi.org/volumes/volume5/issue7/features/lee.html

http://www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/17.html

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-jumping-peacock-spider

http://blogs.discovery.com/animal_news/2011/02/quiet-koalas-turn-up-the-volume-to-attract-mates.html

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/wild/community/blogs/inside-wild/_peacock-mating-dance

http://science.discovery.com/top-ten/2009/mating-ritual/mating-ritual-10.html