Today on land many will celebrate Valentine’s Day with a box of chocolate and a nice dinner. But beneath the waves, there’s a wide weird world of projectile penises, belly flops and mass orgies that makes human sexuality look humdrum.
But who are we to judge?
In “Sex in the Sea,” Marah J. Hardt, research co-director of the nonprofit Future for Fish, gathers tales of marine love that are often as hilarious as they are disturbing.
“Right now, somewhere out there in that big blue sea, you can bet that some creature — if not sneaky, and perhaps acrobatic — hank-panky is going on,” Hardt writes.
“We’ve lifted the veil enough to show the colorful and kinky world of sex [that] drives the ever-unfolding diversity and abundance of life in the sea.”
For instance, though the blue whale has the largest penis of any animal in the world (10 feet!), the lowly barnacle boasts the biggest member when taking body size into account. I mean, did you even know that a barnacle had a penis?
Here are some of our favorite tales of love from the deep.
Lobsters…ewwww
Male and female lobsters consider urine a love potion.
Male lobsters are notoriously aggressive, so to calm a would-be lover, female lobsters stalk their hopeful paramours, incrementally spraying them in the face with their urine over many days, and eventually, “He will be putty in her claws,” Hardt writes. Over time, the female’s scent begins to mingle with that of the male’s, and when he excretes his own urine, the two scents merge, a signal to others that the time is right for some love making.
Once the female feels she has sprayed her man enough times, she enters his den and the “heavy petting begins.” The two touch with their antennae and limbs, and even “lick each other with their feet,” which have the equivalent of taste buds. When the time is right, the female “lifts her claw and taps him on the shoulder, then repeats the movement on the opposite shoulder, as they both let loose a stream of urine.” Get ready for loving.
Mobula rays belly flop
Mobula rays, the cousins of manta rays and sharks, meet every year in the Gulf of California to show off their aerial skills — and perhaps attract some mates in the process.
Hundreds of thousands of these rays gather in a mile-long school and one-by-one pop out of the water into the air, reaching heights of up to 6 feet above the water line. Once aerial, they pivot their bodies so that their bellies are parallel to the water and belly flop, making the loudest “crack” possible.
Researchers have long debated why these rays engage in this ritual. The prevailing theory, writes Hardt, is that the rays are showing off their belly flops in the same way middle-aged men buy fancy cars: They’re trying to impress a possible mate.
“If you want to grow your orgy numbers, nothing beats a full-blown belly flop to attract your neighbors,” she writes.
Grunions are porn stars
“If fish could write romantic novels, the soft-porn section would be filled with titillating tales of grunion runs,” Hardt writes.
Every spring and summer, grunions (Spanish for “grunter”), hurl themselves onto the shores that stretch from Southern California to Baja, Mexico. The fish cannot breathe during this beaching, so it’s like a mass masochistic orgy.
Over three hours, the female fish thrusts her tail to dig a hole in the sand, sinking down 2 or 3 inches until only her head sticks out.
Once in place, up to eight males will wrap themselves around her upper half, using her side as a slide for their sperm to reach the eggs below her.
The romance stops here. Once they deposit their goods, the men up and leave the female to dig herself out and make it safely back to sea.
Male sea horses rule
Sea horses are one of the most monogamous species in the underwater kingdom. Though faithful only through mating season — which lasts about 100 days — they will stay with a mate even in the event of injury or illness. Further proving that sea horses are a catch, the males become “pregnant,” carrying the babies in a warm pouch that protects them until they hatch.
Haddock drum
Haddock use their swim bladders as internal drums, producing a thumping sound to attract mates. The more sexually aroused the bottom-dwelling fish grows, the faster the “thump, thump, thump” of his bladder grows. When the knocks become a hum, the females know that he’s ready to mate.
When mating season occurs, males gather on spawning grounds and lure females out with their bladder songs. Once a female is in sight, the haddock swim in tight circles and figure eights, all the while emitting that drumbeat sound. The male then swims beside his hopeful paramour and flicks his vertical fins up and down and then crosses in front of her, revealing his flank and increasing the tempo of his knocking sounds. Minutes, hours or even days later the male orients so the two are belly-to-belly and clasps his pelvic fins so that he’s holding her. That’s when the hums start and the spawning begins.
Cuttlefish cross-dress
Female cuttlefish are notoriously picky — rejecting upwards of 70% of hopeful mates. So what is a small cuttlefish to do? Pretend to be a woman, of course.
Females are smaller and also have mottled brown coloration and shorter arms — easily mimicked by the already smaller males. The cross-dressing male changes his coloring to mimic that of a female’s and tucks in his arms, “taking special care to hide his modified fourth arm, the one all males use to hand sperm packets over to the female.”
Not only is the female fooled, but the dominant male is, too. The cross-dressing male waits until the bigger male is occupied with another mate and immediately shifts back into his courtship colors.
“If all goes well, the female will allow him to mate with her. She often does, perhaps impressed by his cunning ploy,” Hardt writes. “Being small can have its perks.”
Argonaut squids fire!
The small, open-sea-swimming argonaut squid have a serious size difference between males (just 1 inch) and females (a foot) — so the male needs something extra special to even out the odds of insemination: a detachable penis.
The male can detach his “hectocotylus” and send it off to impregnate an unwitting female (as illustrated at left). The penis itself is longer than the male’s body and is housed in a pouch located beneath his left eye (!). Once mating is in sight, the male amputates the appendage and swims away. The detachable penis must fend for itself in the watery depths and quickly find a female.
“A male argonaut seems less than intimidating. But any female who wakes up the next morning to find her gills stuffed with a still wiggling dismembered penis might feel differently about that,” Hardt writes.
Though the male will die soon after removing his penis, the female will live the rest of her life with a severed penis protruding from her mantle.
Shark love bites
Though very few sharks have been directly observed during mating, nurse sharks give insight into the mating behaviors of other species.
When mating they look like a “giant coppery corkscrew of two (or more) tangled, twisted bodies, the male biting onto one of the two large pectoral fins of the females and wrapping his body around hers.”
This is no sweet bite. The damage can be extensive, but there’s evidence that the female shark doesn’t exactly hate it. In fact, the biting seems to subdue the female and even entices her to acquiesce.
Octopus asphyxiation
The mating habits of octopi sound less than endearing: A male octopus must snake his “arm penis” into the female’s oviduct, or the passage to her ovaries. This takes some serious maneuvering and it “doesn’t always work out so well for the males,” writes Hardt.
There have been many cases of female octopi strangling their sperm donors. As a result, “many males mate at extremely extended arms-distance from the female, attempting to avoid her clutches; or a sneak-attack from behind, jumping on her head to remain out of reach.”
Squid have far more romantic coitus. When a male sees a female, he flashes color patterns across his body and attempts one of two positions: head-to-head or paralleled. When in the parallel position, the male slips his fourth arm right up her funnel to hold her in position and uses his left fourth arm to press a sperm packet into her mantle. OK, maybe romantic is a stretch.
Angelfish soap opera
The living arrangements of rusty angelfish sound like a creepy ’70s commune: One male guards and mates with up to six females. But this isn’t enough for the angel fish. Often, he’ll disappear in search of other “harems” with other female fish.
But the more time he spends away from his female fish, the angrier the females grow. The largest of the bunch starts denying the male sex — and this abstinence actually makes her grow longer, by shifting her energy production from making eggs to gaining length.
Weeks of this and the angel fish will thoroughly shift into male mode — until the time comes when she takes off with the rest of the harem and starts her own commune.
Flatworms penis fence
When a flatworm encounters another one, the two worms rise up like snakes and expose their “double-headed penis,” called a stylet. The jousting commences — and can last an hour, with both suffering serious stab wounds in the process. So why do it?
One way the flatworms inseminate is through stabbing, as a way to bypass the female reproductive tract and avoid any defenses within it. The goal is to deposit their goods anywhere on the body, even if it means nearly killing their mate in the process.
Anglergish…double ewwww
In the deep sea, the male ceratoid anglerfish (don’t Google it), have the most disturbing mating ritual of them all.
The male anglerfish uses his sense of smell to track down a female and when he finally does sinks his teeth into her belly. Things take a strange turn from here.
“Upon contact with her flesh, the male’s mouth starts to melt as his jawbones disintegrate. Like falling into quicksand, his snout dissolves as his tissue merge with hers,” Hardt writes.
At the end of the process, all that remains is a sac of sperm — and the female can now control its ejaculation. Just try and scrub that from your memory.