Squid sex: a shot in the dark

What do you do if you're a lonely male squid? Fire your sperm at the first potential partner you see, regardless if it's male or female.

That's life in the deep sea where sex partners can be hard to find. A new study shows that male Octopoteuthis deletron attempt to copulate at the first sign of another member of their species, without bothering to learn first whether it's a female.

They deposit spermatophores on the backside of other squid using a long penis-like organ, and the lucky deposits made on females are absorbed and used to fertilize her eggs.

Just one of many strange ways that deep sea creatures reproduce.

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How to sell a cause

This controversial video has people talking.  It might even remind people to vote.  

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Penis competition in ducks

Hang around with other guys if you want your penis to get bigger. At least that's how it works in ducks.

A new study shows that male ducks that live with other guys grow a bigger penis than male ducks that only live with females. Apparently, the competition of having other guys around stimulates ducks to produce a bigger penis, in hopes of winning the mating game.

This is just one of the crazy aspects of duck mating. Duck phalluses are not only big, they have a corkscrew shape. And female ducks have strange, multi-pocketed vaginas that allow female ducks to control which aggressive male gets to fertilize her eggs. Evolving a labyrinthine vagina seems like a useful strategy for a species where forced copulation is common. Since female ducks don't get to control who mates with them, they have evolved anatomy that allows them to control who fathers their ducklings.

All of which makes great fodder for feminists and masculinists to argue forever about what all of this mating strangeness means.

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Herbicide turns males into females

Do you use weed killers? Well, you may think twice after you hear about herbicide-doused male frogs that turn female. They don't just act female--mating with other male frogs (see photo)--they actually produce real eggs.

Atrazine, the common weed killer, can turn male frogs into females when the frogs are exposed at levels found in nature (levels that the US EPA says is safe for drinking water). In the photo at right, the frog on the bottom is a feminized male that is mating with the normal male on the top.

The feminized male frogs do more than just mate with normal males, they produce viable eggs.

So watch out for that weed killer guys, you may not like the results. And your partners may like the results even less than you do.

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Do you have a retractable sexual appendage on your forehead?

If not, then you're outshined by a male chimaera, such as the newly discovered black ghostshark.

The strange shark-like fish has lots of strangeness about it, but nothing matches it's ...ahem... tentaculum. According to ichthyologist Douglas Long:

“They have this club on the top of their head with spikes. People think it’s used for mating,” Long said. “It’s like a little mace with little spikes and hooks and it fits into their forehead. It’s jointed and it comes out. We’re not sure if it is used to stimulate the female or hold the female closer.”

Sadly, you can't see it very well in the pictures at right. I'll keep searching for a usable image, because you're not the only one who wants to see it.

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Underwater porno--sex lives of ocean creatures

Isabella Rossellini is back, and this time she goes underwater to enact the sex lives of ocean creatures in Green Porno 2.

My favorite, of course, is the deep sea anglerfish, but others may find reflections of human behavior in the right whale gauntlet.

This is some good storytelling, and here's a teaser.

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Crabby sex

I was minding my own business in a nearby public park when I saw something that caught my attention. A couple that was barely visible, very close together.

I happened to have my camera handy, and moved a bit closer.

They were almost entirely hidden beneath a cover, the male on top with only his face peeking out. The female was underneath, facing the male, even more hidden.

Here's a sequence of pictures as I deftly sneaked closer and closer.




Note the fantastic mood lighting, the shimmering waves of rainbow-colored light refracting off the nearby surface of Puget Sound, highlighting the lucky couple.

Shortly after taking picture 3 above, the couple burst out from under cover and started scurrying away from me. I followed, of course, as nonchalantly as possible under the circumstances, hiding behind my camera.

He managed to carry her heroically away, remaining in flagrante delicto (in the blazing misdeed) throughout. See more photos below.





Note the blurry image of the rapidly fleeing coupled couple in the top photo of this series of 3. The couple is in sharper focus in the lower 2 photos, they slowed down a bit and I got steadier. Note the crabby expressions on both of their faces, and the miraculous-seeming continuing embrace even as he carries her away.

At this point, you may be wondering if your intrepid voyeuristic reporter started feeling a bit bad and the answer is yes. I decided I'd seen and photographed enough and determined to stop where I was and let them be. They sidled off into a dark grassy area and I watched them go (and took just a few more pictures, see one more below as they escape into darkness).



Note: the color of these photos has not been altered at all. I boosted the contrast of a couple of them just a tiny bit.


Dungeness crab mating is fascinating and highly romantic. Pheremones in the female's urine attract males to interested females. Upon locating a female the male initiates a protective pre-mating embrace, abdomens touching, face to face. The embrace may last up to a week. Then, the female molts (sheds her hard shell) and signals her readiness by urinating on or near the male's antannae. Copulation ensues within an hour, and the embrace lasts for another couple of days.

The embrace may be protective of the female as her new shell hardens, and also prevent other males from mating.

The female stores the sperm until her eggs are mature several months later, and then the ripe eggs are fertilized by the stored sperm. She carries the fertilzed eggs attached to her abdomen for several more months until they hatch into free swimming larvae.

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Vegansexuals

The latest way to change what other people eat? Refuse to have sex with people who eat things you don't like.

Vegansexuals are vegans (people who eat no animal products) who refuse to have sex with non-vegans. One vegansexual stated that she wouldn't want to have sex with someone who ate animal products because that person's body is made up of dead animals:

"I would not want to be intimate with someone whose body is literally made up from the bodies of others who have died for their sustenance"

How is this being received? Check the video clip below for an answer:

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Sex, not piety brings eternal life

Remember, you learned it first from a sea creature.

Sex, not piety is the secret to eternal life. So says the Sun based on studies of Turritopsis Nutricula, the hydrozoan. And it you want a more authoritative source, Wikipedia agrees with the Sun. Or, if you prefer hard science you can find this great truth verified in Developmental Biology Online.

The way it works is the hydrozoan de-differentiates after reproducing, basically becomming a baby all over again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Frankly, I knew it. Piety never felt that good to me, and sex seems ever so much more promising.

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Green porno reaches out and touches you

In a way that dry facts can't touch you. I especially like the big, wet slimy foot images in snail sex (below). Isabella Rossellini delivers bug sex performance art like you've never seen it before.

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Insert inappropriate headline here

Today's news of the ethics scandals in the Interior Department raises more questions about who would benefit the most from increased domestic oil production, as government employees in the oil revenue program took trips, hotels, drugs, and other, um, "favors" from the oil companies they were supposed to be watching. Here's a quote from the IG as reported in the Houston Chronicle:

"These same ... marketers also engaged in brief sexual relations with industry contacts," Devaney wrote. "Sexual relations with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms-length."

Blogfish is trying very, very hard to resist the "drill here, drill now" jokes. Okay, not that hard.

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Sex change shop in Atlanta airport

Buy a sex change in Atlanta airport? Really? Check the photo. The guy on the right seems to be in a hurry, I wonder if he's late for his appointment.

OK, I don't know Atlanta very well. I'm just flying through on my way to Key West, and I'm amazed to find a shop with a big sign that says NEW SEX CHANGE. It just looks like a newsstand, with people buying magazines. Then I get it...NEWS EXCHANGE. Somebody oughtta tell them to put bigger spaces between the words.

This reminds me of the sign I used to see on the freeway in Portland, Oregon, where a popular bookstore shared a sign with a home furnishings store. The sign said:

BED, BATH,
AND BEYOND
BORDERS

Sounds interesting, wonder what they had in the back room.

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Octopus sex includes flirting and fighting

Human mating behavior is not so different from an Indonesian octopus. The prelude can include flirting and passionate hand-holding, but it can get rough when macho males jealously guard a female's home and strangle rivals.

The photo above right shows octopus sex, including the males specialized mating arm. The secrets of octopus mating have been hard to uncover, since octopi are so secretive. The current study came as scientific voyeurs hovered over the homes of shallow reef octopus and watched until they had seen enough. Special secrets include small "sneaker" males that mimic females and try to slip past other males to get to a willing female.

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Great white shark frenzy resembles fraternity party

Watch this video for an amazing look at a great white shark feeding frenzy that results in the sharks appearing drunk and sexually active. It reminds me of a fraternity party, except fed by whale blubber instead of take-out pizza and beer.

A whale carcass off South Africa attracts 27 large great white sharks, with the sharks lining up to eat 30-40 pound bites of whale blubber. As the sharks eat more and more, jostling each other in the process, they begin to appear intoxicated, moving slowly around the carcass and bumping into each other, the carcass, and the film crews boats and observation cage.

Finally, the sharks appear sexually aroused and active, although actual mating is not observed. Perhaps this takes place upstairs in the more private rooms. The film crew believes this may be the largest congregation of large great white sharks ever observed, and the closest thing to observing white shark mating.

One scientist says this film supports his theory that white shark mating may occur after large aggregations of sharks finish a feeding frenzy.

Stunning video. I don't know if the commentary is accurate, but take a look for yourself.

Hat tip: Sea Notes

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Sex in the deep blue sea

Ocean animals have sex lives much stranger than anything people can imagine.

Like the deep sea angler fish with passionate life-long love bites between a female and several males. Or the rock-bound barnacles who mate by sending their penis probing around searching for a female. Or sex change in fish. Or group sex. Or...

Read all about it in KamaSEAtra: Secrets of Sex in the Sea, a new book by Sheree Marris.

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Using sex to sell conservation

Is it ok to use sexy images to promote conservation? Wildcoast has an ad campaign designed to save turtles by going where most groups are afraid to go.

Check out the sexy pitch person in this ad, noting that her man doesn't need turtle eggs. Turtle eggs are eaten as an aphrodisiac, and the campaing hopes to reduce poaching, such as this large arrest in Mexico of poachers with 57,000 turtle eggs.

Feminists are not happy with the campaign because they believe it disrespects women.

Does it work? The ads are certainly getting publicity for turtle conservation. But is that kind of publicity helpful? Or does it do more harm than good, even if it saves turtles? Now about that ad promoting marine protected areas...

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Strange mating rituals in marine worms

Imagine the dating game if you couldn't get out of your house. Some non-swimming marine worms respond by breaking off their tails and sending them out to mingle and mate--after growing a second rudimentary head to guide the process

It's called epitoky, and it's even more interesting than a pharyngula.

Breaking off a tail filled with sperm or eggs is so strange that biologists used to think these mating forms were separate species.

And if that's not odd enough, the epitokes are a delicacy consumed by people...they're the worm caviar of the Pacific.

There are ocean creatures stranger than anything we landlubbers could imagine.

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Merry Cephalopodmas

Mollusc lovers, note the new holiday-Cephalopodmas-championed over at Pharyngula, an entertaining and popular blog that touches on molluscs, evolution, and debunking intelligent design.

Are molluscs and Cephalopodmas mainstream, now that Macy's is on board (left)?

Advanced molluscophiles may want to try some more esoteric treats from Pharyngula, such as octopus sex, squid sex, or even slug sex. Pharyngula knows how to blog.

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Pollution shrinking genitals of polar bears

Don't look down, my friend, you may not like what you see.

Pollution will definitely be a thing of the past once mostly-male politicians (at least in the US) find out that pollution is shrinking genital size in polar bears.

This is hitting where it hurts. Preserved penises were larger than the small versions found on today's polluted polar bears. There's no reason to believe this can't happen to us. Will we see some research on humans soon?

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DC males turning female

Pollution may appear on the national agenda, now that the "intersex" phenomenon is showing up in DC.

Intersex is the problem of males developing female sexual characteristics. Now that it's happening to record levels of Potomac residents, the problem may get attention.

...except that it's still just showing up in Potomac FISH...

Maybe Congress will get worried since some members of Congress must drink the water and eat fish, and they might get a dose of whatever did this to local fish.

So far, action has not exactly been swift. Dale Kemery, media contact for the EPA’s Office of Water, said that the Agency is waiting for more scientific investigations before declaring a position.

And since it only affects SMALLMOUTH bass, I suppose members of Congress need not worry.

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