Nature's Most Outrageous Reproductive Acts



Written by Jonathan C. Wojcik - Photo credits unknown or from public news articles unless otherwise

noted. If you know their sources and need them credited or removed, please e-mail me.



Survival in the natural world ultimately comes down to only two principles: feed and reproduce. By

now, you should know how some organisms murder and enslave other creatures for their own

propagation, brood young in their own flesh or keep thousands of mates in their own

bodies , but situations such as these are just a glimmer of the Animal kingdom's most morbid

perversions. Like the secret myspace blog of a schoolteacher, Mother Nature hides her darkest

fetishes in some of the most cryptic and unlikely places...



Ceratoid Anglerfish: Parasitic Husbands



I've already touched upon male Ceratoids here , but this list just wouldn't be complete

without their presence, and you can never show off too many photos of their lovely lifestyle.



A large female Ceratoid with a smaller, attached male.



Finding a mate can be tough in the eternal darkness of the deep ocean, so when a tiny

male anglerfish encounters a female, he clings to her body with his jaws for an extended

period of time, and in some species, permanently. An enzyme is released to dissolve his

lips, melting his face into the skin of his mate while he subsists on her blood. Eventually

they will merge on the circulatory level, transforming the male into a body part of the

female. His eyes, brain and other organs may gradually atrophy, leaving only the gonads

to produce sperm as necessary.



Deep-sea Squid: Live Ammunition



When it comes to certain squid - including some of the world's largest - the smaller,

weaker male is more likely to end up in the female's stomach than her heart. Since it can

be difficult to line up reproductive organs in the middle of a cannibalistic death-match, the

female is receptive to sperm almost anywhere on her body, and the male need only inject

it under her flesh. In species like Taningia danae , the male may inflict wounds with his

beak to deposit sperm packets ( spermatophores ) more than two inches deep.



In others, like Moroteuthis ingens , the spermatophores are complicated arrow-like

mechanisms "shot" into the female's body, where they dig themselves deeper with an

enzyme secretion before most of the mechanism is discarded. Mistakes are not

uncommon, with sperm-missiles frequently found embedded in other males or even in

such useless locations as eyeballs .



Green Spoon Worm: Internal Affairs



Spoonworms or Echiurans are bizarre sand-dwellers usually distinguished by a fat,

cucumber-like body and a forked, ribbon-like feeding proboscis that can stretch to

incredible lengths as it vacuums food from the ocean floor. Most of their reproductive

habits are poorly understood, but at least one species, Bonellia viridis , has exhibited a

form of dimorphism even odder than the Anglerfish. When a sexless, microscopic larva

touches down on unoccupied sand, it begins a gradual transformation into a large female

over the course of many years. Most larvae, however, will end up following the scent of an

already-mature female. Contact with her skin will "masculinise" the larvae, who remain

microscopic in size but develop into fertile males crawling on her body. She will eventually

suck them through her proboscis and into her genital sac, where they will spend the rest of

their lives parasitically.



"R. Ignell" is a hero.



Bed Bugs: Penile Combat



The Cimicidae or "bed bugs" are tiny, hemotophagous (blood-drinking) insects of the

order Hemiptera , a massive group which also includes the stink bugs, water bugs,

assassin bugs, cicadas, aphids and leaf-hoppers. Though their nocturnal attacks can be

distressing to us mammals, it may be of some small comfort to know that the Cimicidae

themselves lead a far rougher existence...



All Cimicidae mate through what is known as "traumatic insemination:" like the squids

above, a female bedbug does not receive sperm through any particular opening, leaving

the male to create one himself. In this case, the male cuts his way through the female's

exoskeleton with a sword-like, needle-tipped phallus and releases sperm directly into the

hemolymph or "blood." Females fight these violent advances as they would a predatory

attack, as the wounds can be permanently crippling and easily become infected. In some

species, females even fight back with their own identical weaponry, making them tougher

for the males to identify and leading to what scientists have dubbed "penis fencing."



Cruel though it seems to our human sensibilities, arrangements such as these ensure that

only the strongest individuals will pass on their genes. Males must be tough enough to

overcome the larger, more powerful females and females must be healthy enough to

survive their wounds. It's no wonder these insects have adapted to most pesticides at an

unprecedented rate, making a dramatic comeback where they were once thought to have

been fully eradicated.



Adactylidium Mites: Unborn Incest and Matricidal Cannibalism



In microscopic mites of the genus Adactylidium , the male is never born and the females

are born pregnant. You can probably figure out how this is possible on your own, but you

came here for the gruesome details and that's what you're going to get.

