The echidna has a four-headed penis.
Shutterstock
The competition to father young is often most intense behind the scenes.
“Hello there, handsome…”
knoelle44/flickr
Beneath their beautiful, flashing facade some female fireflies are ruthless predators.
You might dress like this once a year, but for eclectus parrots it’s a way of life.
Doug Janson/Wikimedia Commons
From mistletoebirds, to bush turkeys, to the festively plumaged eclectus parrot, Australian birds can more than hold their own when it comes to embracing the Christmas spirit.
Is this how we got the sperm and the egg?
Sebastian Kaulitzki/Shutterstock
An ancient sexual conflict over mitochondrial inheritance may be responsible for the evolution of the two sexes as we know them.
What can mating yeast tell us about new drugs?
Conor Lawless
By exploiting the way yeast cells mate, researchers have figured out a quicker, easier way to identify on- and off-target drug interactions.
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Some fish build sandcastles to attract a mate but others just use sneaky tactics.
All shapes and sizes.
Didier Descouens
New research uncovers the role of the primate baculum and may explain why humans don’t have one.
Bride and groom, 1900-1910.
wikimedia
Researchers show that a sexually transmitted disease similar to gonorrhoea could have got rid of promiscuous behaviour in agricultural societies.
A male African jacana bird mounts a female, but who takes the lead in caring for the young?.
Shutterstock/Dave Montreuil
Sex roles in nature don’t always follow the same script. In fact, some females have genitals that resemble a penis. How can this be? Evolution has the answers.
Marital resemblance is the degree to which we marry people who resemble us in some characteristic or another.
olga_murillo/Flickr
A study published in JAMA Psychiatry this week sheds light on the influence of psychiatric disorders on relationships and mating.
There seems to be a level of implicit trust between gay men and straight women.
'Chatting' via www.shutterstock.com
Research shows that women are especially drawn to gay men in certain contexts.
Rebecca Gelerenter/QMUL
Researchers have found the first evidence that dinosaurs grew unusual features like crests and horns as a way of attracting a mate.
Tyrannosaurus tango.
Xing Lida and Yujiang Han
Researchers believe newly uncovered fossils suggest some dinosaurs had similar courtship practices to modern birds. But can ancient footprints really reveal so much?
Biting your partner’s nose - a winner for birds, not always for humans.
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From dancing to giving presents, animals have evolved some effective and surprisingly familiar ways of wooing a mate.
Look at me! They’re not called peacock spiders for nothing.
Maddie Girard
Biologists, along with most of the internet, have been puzzled as to why peacock spiders have such flamboyant courtship displays. So we decided to find out.
Guys, I’m just trying to hibernate over here.
Jason Cohn / Reuters
It’s all about mating success.
Married couples share a significantly higher number of genetic similarities compared to any two random individuals. Researchers…
The male green poison-dart frog is able to deliver bold mating calls to females while being less conspicuous to potential…
Male lyrebirds perform choreographed dances to match the song they are singing when trying to attract a mate. Not only do…