Romance is rare in the animal kingdom. Instead of wooing their partners before copulating, male ducks force themselves onto females, depositing genetic material with spiky, corkscrew penises. Then, there's tardigrade sex , which is less violent but not exactly heartwarming. Females lay eggs into a husk of dead skin. The male then ejaculates onto the eggs while stroking the female, and the whole process can take up to an hour. But you can't talk about disturbing mating rituals in nature without mentioning snails. If you're unfamiliar with snail sexuality , you may assume that snail sex falls on the vanilla side: The mollusks, after all, are famous for being slow-moving and they don't even have limbs. But if you have the patience to watch a pair of snails going at it, you'll notice that things get interesting.
Top Stories
BIOGRAPHIES
Forums New posts Trending Search forums. What's new New posts Latest activity. MFK Forums. Tank Calculator. Log in. Search Everywhere Threads This forum This thread. Search titles only. Search Advanced search…. Everywhere Threads This forum This thread.
Connect with ABC News
It starts with a light, soft touch, one tentacle gently reaching out, hesitant, hopeful, hanging lightly in the air. Skin touches skin. One softly strokes the other and slides closer, and then, carefully, they wrap themselves together, stroking, probing, entwining. They glisten as they move, and because they are snails, everything happens very slowly. The rubbing, the rapture, the intensity of it all—snail sex is extraordinarily lovely to look at. Garden snails make love in the open—on garden patios, in clearings on the forest floor—and they do it luxuriantly for one, two, three hours at a time, under the sky, where they can be seen by jays, orioles, frogs, snakes, shrews, mice, beetles, and other animals that might want to eat them.
Posted March 31, Topics: rural , agricultural-crops , weird-and-wonderful , animals , human-interest , miscellaneous-animal-production , livestock , gardening , lifestyle-and-leisure , maroochydore , brisbane If you have inside knowledge of a topic in the news, contact the ABC. ABC teams share the story behind the story and insights into the making of digital, TV and radio content. Read about our editorial guiding principles and the standards ABC journalists and content makers follow.
