Peahen Preselection And Other Lessons From Our Animal Friends

We can learn something about ourselves from the animals who share this earth with us. (Warning: Not all lessons SJW-approved.)

Mongoose are one of the few species known to go to war (along with humans and chimpanzees) and females use this to their advantage when it’s time to mate.

Family troops suffer badly from inbreeding, which means pups are less healthy and are more likely to die. But mongoose are fiercely territorial, so mating with a stranger is extremely difficult.

The devious female will deliberately lead her family into a rival clan’s territory to start a war, then use the chaos to scurry off into the bushes with her chosen male to mate.

Mongoose, chimps, and humans are among the few species who go to war. And how do they do it? The females lure their men to war, and then in the chaos fuck the other tribe’s males. Sound familiar?

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A female prairie dog is fertile for just six hours each year, but during that time she will mate with up to six different males within her group.

The more partners she has, the greater the danger of being caught in the open by a predator or catching a sexually transmitted disease.

Not all prairie dogs are promiscuous – a third have just one partner – but those that are increase their chances of conceiving and can even give birth to pups with different fathers in the same litter. That genetic diversity reduces the risk of the whole family being wiped out by a new disease.

r-selection versus K-selection within the same species. Sound familiar?

Liz said: “We are still working out how a female can mate with lots of different males and bear young from each of them. It is a fantastic strategy.”

Yes, the human female is very excited with the idea of being able to fuck lots of alphas during her ovulation and carry the issue of multiple fathers.

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They may be the most beautiful birds on the planet, but even peacocks struggle to find a mate.

So lusty males have come up with an ingenious way to get lucky.

When males mate they climax with a strangled squawk. This pitiful sound attracts other females that are keen to check out this stud as a potential partner.

Less desirable males have even learned to fake this cry when they cannot find a mate, as a way to lure peahens into having sex with them.

Liz says: “You might think that peacocks use so much energy looking flamboyant that they don’t have much intelligence in their little head, but that’s not the case. Faking the mating cry is an incredibly cunning ploy to make females think they are in demand, so they come running.”

aka peahen preselection. Women (and peahens) dig men (and peacocks) who are loved by other women. Game crosses the species barrier!

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The Long Tailed Manakin puts on a song and dance to attract a mate.

Two male birds work together on a slender branch to perform a series of synchronised dance moves, including the cartwheel and the popcorn. The better the dance, the more likely they are to attract a female. But only one dance partner can get the girl.

While the alpha male flies off to mate with his new admirer, the subordinate is left spitting feathers.

Liz says: “This looks like the ultimate betrayal as the poor wing man is left with nothing to show for his efforts. But when the dominant male dies, the subordinate will inherit his dance site.

“Females will return to the best dance sites year after year, so his hard work eventually pays off.”

The male feminist/beta male orbiter strategy: Be a shoulder for the girl to cry on about all the jerkboys she loved, let season for a few years, then make your move during a moment of weakness, like when she hasn’t been boned for more than three months.

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The saying ‘the female of the species is more deadly than the male’ is certainly true of the praying mantis. She beheads and devours her mate after their 40 hour sex marathon.

The female lays hundreds of eggs, which requires a huge amount of energy. Eating the male increases the quality of the eggs and the number she produces by up 40 per cent.

Liz says: “This sounds horrific, but it is just nature at its best.”

…she giggled with delight.

“Nature has made the male mantis far more nutritious that her regular diet of caterpillars and butterflies. It is absolutely logical that once she has mated with the male, she should eat him too.”

One species, the false garden mantis, can even release powerful pheromones to attract males before she is ready to mate. She eats the first male to arrive to ensure she has the nutrition and energy she needs to produce the highest quality eggs, before mating with the next.

The inverse of alpha fux-beta bux, in this case beta bux (in the material form of the beta himself) is followed by the alpha fux.

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Dawson’s burrowing bees have one of the most frenzied approaches to mating in the animal world.

Thousands of females spend most of the year hidden beneath the baked earth before digging their way to freedom, only to be confronted by hundreds of thousands of males.

Each female only mates once, so the males fight it out, mobbing each female until there are huge balls of bees fighting each other with their powerful jaws and spiny legs.

These battles are so intense the males sometimes kill the object of their desire by accident. The fight continues until the female emerges with one male on her back and they must dash to the safety of the nearby scrubland to mate before the rest of the bees catch them.

Beta male thirst, complete with the occasional #BeeToo infraction.

Liz says: “Violence is nature’s way of separating the strong from the weak, so this mating frenzy is brutally effective way of selecting the strongest genes.”

“Let’s you and him fight,” the human female coyly implored.