With the opening of the Sexual Nature exhibition at the Natural History Museum we take a look at some of the animal kingdom's stranger methods of coitus

Animals, everyone agrees they're cute. Even when they're rifling through your bins, abducting your children or conducting audacious raids on privately owned pic-a-nic baskets. But can animals be sexy? That's the question nearly being asked by the Natural History Museum in an upcoming exhibition, Sexual Nature, in which the mating habits of creatures big and small are put under the X-rated microscope. Some creatures, it turns out, do it a little differently …

The praying mantis

In the kind of congress that makes Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct look like Kristen Stewart in The Twilight Saga, a successful mating of praying mantises (mantii?) involves the female eating her partner, head first. Fertilisation can still take place without the bloke mantis's head, though. There's a moral in there somewhere.

Hedgehogs

In order to make sure that his prickly little sperm have the best chance of fertilising his partner's eggs, a male hedgehog will "plug" her vagina with a hard-setting seminal fluid. Once done, he will then use any remaining fluids to fill in some cracks around the kitchen units before putting his paws up in front of Sky Sports News.

Blue fairy wrens

It says here that male blue fairy wrens have testicles that can weigh up to 25% of their body mass. That's an awful load to carry around with you, especially when you can't even use them for storage. Their large balls are necessary because they are both inclined to form partnerships with female wrens and be highly promiscuous at the same time. Which makes them the cute little birdy version of Fleetwood Mac.

Fleas

A solution to the promiscuity problem could be at hand were lessons to be taken from the humble flea. As well as having evolved to the point of being able to infest any domestic pet, anywhere, at any time, male fleas also have fiendishly intricate genitalia. Thanks to their highly technical tackle they are incapable of mating with the wrong species.

Spinner dolphins

These little guys are masters of acrobatics, well-known for jumping out of the water and spinning in the air as they swim. What is less well-known is that after this PG-rated courtship, they then mate in mass orgies. Even better, these orgies are known in the dolphin-watching community as "wuzzles". Goodness only knows what the dolphins call 'em.

Coral reefs

While we're on the subject of communal carnality, of entire species getting on the way God intended (if God was into the idea of group sex), the spinner dolphins have nothing on the corals of the Great Barrier Reef. These blooming marvels spawn altogether at once, making it the biggest mass sex act on the planet. Eat your heart out, Snoop Dogg.

Sexual Nature, Natural History Museum, SW7, Fri to 2 Oct