h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Animal Sex - A4885112
Author: Gnomon - [ 2 stars; 128 solo EGEs ] - U151503

What do you think? Is there enough in this?

I enjoyed this one, Gnomon, as far as it goes

Any chance of any more? You have a few more facts, for example, about the penis, but only one of the vagina. Are there any more (female) nuggets that could be included? Are the bonobo the *only* ones who say 'hello' with a bit of rumpy-pumpy (or are so promiscuous)?

Hmm, it is a bit lightweight at the moment. I've just about exhausted my knowledge of animal sex, but if anyone has any suggestions, I'll glady incorporate them.

It _is_ a bit lightweight, but I reckon if you leave it around here long enough, you might get enough filler material for a collaborative Entry.

"his penis would be the size of Nelson's Column!"

This might need a footnote as clarification.

**is now worried as to whether he's part of a 'Belzoni-animal sex' anthropological experiment*

B

Some ideas that might be of interest:

In http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6606927.stm , there's a couple of bits on how monkeys and shrews show they're interested. I was listening to it on the way home from work. I liked the eye-brow raising. Accompanied by a 'come upstairs' look presumably.

Also, swifts manage mid-air.

And, it rings a vague bell that snails, or was it slugs, have a very different way - don't they fire tiny arrows into each other... I can't remember how it worked now but it was neat. Might go googling later to see if I can find it.

Couldn't wait till later, it's snails - they exchange love darts. Cute or what? A quick search found http://www.weichtiere.at/Mollusks/Schnecken/land/weinberg/reproduction.html

Slugs however, are also interesting http://www.arnobrosi.com/slugbio.html.

And Bananslugs practice 'apophallation', in order to force one of the hermaphrodite pair into playing mother.

You obviously can't include every species, but if you're looking for some of the weirder examples, those might fit in.

That's interesting stuff LLWaz. I'll include it. I'll also put something in about black widow spiders.

Wow, I can see this growing...(leave the innuendo at the door)

Anyway,

junk e-mail

why not call it spam? Although I suppose spam could be misread...

On penises -

Badgers have a bone in theirs.

Pigs are curly like their tails.

Cats have barbs on theirs (ouch).

Perhaps how seahorses reproduce might be worth mentioning too?

Good luck with this one, it will surely draw the readers in

Don't forget the female praying mantis, which keeps hold of the male until he's done his useful bit, then bites his head off as protein for the developing young.

In Kew we saw a pair of butterflies swirling around and around in a spiral upwards above our heads. I couldn't tell you if they were fighting over territory or gettin' sweaty, though

It is not only girly wolves that have the lock on the door - Alsatians/German Shepherds do too - and the reason is that the vagina continues pulsing to squeeze max juice out of the poor boy bit and yes, she does, most nonchalantly, go back to doing whatever it is she was doing (drinking, lying down) while the boyfriend is contorted into the most improbable configuration trying to stay upright and prevent hisself from nosediving in a most undignified manner into the ground.

Poor thing, after all the wining and dining he had to do to get there in the first place.

As for the preying mantis. Tsk. Well it makes you wonder why the men bother

Nice entry, Gnomon!

W

I think I read somewhere that a pig's orgasm is supposed to last 30 minutes.

Now that's just....

Pandas .... it seems the male panda's penis is rather introverted - when erect it leans inwards to his body rather than outward to hers ....... could be part of the problem with the mating programme.

It seems a shame to start with a quote about bees, and then not mention them in the entry. Honey bee queens mate with several males and rip their phalluses from their bodies. The males die from having their abdomens torn open, and the queen keeps the sperm to fertilise future eggs. I suppose we should be thankful "the birds and the bees" really isn't an accurate euphemism.

There's a good description (it even has diagrams) here:
http://plantphys.info/plants_human/bees/bees.html

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That seems improbable, because I recall reading that humans, dolphins and bonobos are the only animals that have orgasms. I could be wrong on that though.

No, pigs definitely have orgasms. You never saw the look on that one's face in The Farm, after Rebecca Loos (David "Golden Balls" ex) had given him a hand - providing life-making stuff for the next litter of course (you normmally have to pay $$$ on the 'net for such eyeballing and vocal activities but...)

Where was I? Oh yes, I just awoke from one of my strangest dreams ever (why did I read this entry last thing last night?). There was a male mallard saying "Don't forget me!" - I read recently that mallards get so excited that several of them jump on a passing lady mallard and sometimes the poor girl ends up drowned.


Then along came a flash of running meerkats, and I remembered a few weeks ago watching Meerkat Manor, those little creatures never interbreed with their own family group, only the alpha male and female are allowed to mate and produce pups. But of course, the teenagers (who are supposed to be babysitting) often nip off-duty to find any "rovers" from other bands of meerkats, and if it's the opposite sex then it's illicit nookie-time. I was watching this naughty pair going at it under a tree when an eagle owl swooped overhead and the male looked up, broke off, the pair of them dived under cover out of sight of the predator and carried on where they'd left off. The camera stayed on this pair (I swear - why do we need Big Brother???) and the look on his face was absolute bliss. He was also getting very tired.Next time the camera peeked, he'd collapsed on top of her, his eyes were closed and she was trying to wriggle out from underneath him.

If wolves are like dogs, while they are tied (a knot forms at the base of the penis so he can't take it out) the male is still ejaculating (so another 30 minute orgasm?). With dogs the male turns round by swinging his leg over the females back and they then stay back to back for the duration. Can be rather amusing if the dogs are different sizes and the female pulls the poor male around. When my mum was breeding dogs she had to hold one of hers as the male looked to be in pain!

Also no mention of cats? Tomcats have barbs on their penis like a fish hook - the pain of withdrawal causes the female to and to ovulate.

Great entry!

makes you grateful to be human, doesn't it?

I told you everybody likes reading about sex!

There should be plenty of material there to beef this up a bit.

oh my
most excellent entry. I see there's a note on the entry about Dolphins - did that ever... ah... come to anything?