Animal sexual behaviour

Animal sexual behaviour takes many different forms, including within the same species. Common mating or reproductively motivated systems include monogamy, polygyny, polyandry, polygamy and promiscuity. Other sexual behaviour may be reproductively motivated (e.g. sex apparently due to duress or coercion and situational sexual behaviour) or non-reproductively motivated (e.g. homosexual sexual behaviour, bisexual sexual behaviour, cross-species sex, sexual arousal from objects or places, sex with dead animals, etc.).

This article is about the sexual behavior of nonhuman animals. For human sexual behavior, see Human sexual activity and Human sexuality. For other uses, see Animal sex (disambiguation).

When animal sexual behaviour is reproductively motivated, it is often termed mating or copulation; for most non-human mammals, mating and copulation occur at oestrus (the most fertile period in the mammalian female's reproductive cycle), which increases the chances of successful impregnation.^[1]^[2] Some animal sexual behaviour involves competition, sometimes fighting, between multiple males. Females often select males for mating only if they appear strong and able to protect themselves. The male that wins a fight may also have the chance to mate with a larger number of females and will therefore pass on his genes to their offspring.^[3]

Historically, it was believed that only humans and a small number of other species performed sexual acts other than for reproduction, and that animals' sexuality was instinctive and a simple "stimulus-response" behaviour. However, in addition to homosexual behaviours, a range of species masturbate and may use objects as tools to help them do so. Sexual behaviour may be tied more strongly to the establishment and maintenance of complex social bonds across a population which support its success in non-reproductive ways. Both reproductive and non-reproductive behaviours can be related to expressions of dominance over another animal or survival within a stressful situation (such as sex due to duress or coercion).

competitive : in lions, hippopotamuses, and some monkeys, the new male will kill the offspring of the previous alpha male to cause their mothers to become receptive to his sexual advances since they are no longer nursing. To prevent this, many female primates exhibit ovulation cues among all males, and show situation-dependent receptivity.^[22]

infanticide

to miscarriage: amongst wild horses and baboons, the male will continually attack pregnant females until they miscarry.

harassment

-based spontaneous abortion

Pheromone

in some such as mice, a new male with a different scent will cause females who are pregnant to spontaneously fail to implant recently fertilised eggs. This does not require contact; it is mediated by scent alone. It is known as the Bruce effect.

rodents

Interbreeding: offspring can result from the mating of two organisms of distinct but closely related parent species, although the resulting offspring is not always fertile. According to Alfred Kinsey, genetic studies on wild animal populations have shown a "large number" of inter-species hybrids.^[96]

Hybrid

Prostitution: There are reports that animals occasionally engage in . A small number of pair-bonded females within a group of penguins took nesting material (stones) after copulating with a non-partner male. The researcher stated "I was watching opportunistically, so I can't give an exact figure of how common it really is."^[97] It has been reported that "bartering of meat for sex ... forms part of the social fabric of a troop of wild chimps living in the Tai National Park in the Côte d'Ivoire."^[98]

prostitution

Pavlovian conditioning: The sexualisation of objects or locations is recognised in the animal breeding world. For example, male animals may become upon visiting a location where they have been allowed to have sex before, or upon seeing a stimulus previously associated with sexual activity such as an artificial vagina.^[99] Sexual preferences for certain cues can be artificially induced in rats by pairing scents or objects with their early sexual experiences.^[100] The primary motivation of this behaviour is Pavlovian conditioning, and the association is due to a conditioned response (or association) formed with a distinctive "reward".^[100]

sexually aroused

Viewing images: A study using four adult male rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) showed that male will give up a highly valued item, juice, to see images of the faces or perineum of high-status females.^[101] Encouraging captive pandas to mate is problematic. Showing young male pandas "panda pornography" is credited with a recent population boom among pandas in captivity in China. One researcher attributed the success to the sounds on the recordings.^[102]

rhesus macaques

Copulatory wounding and : Injury to a partner's genital tract during mating occurs in at least 40 taxa, ranging from fruit flies to humans. However, it often goes unnoticed due to its cryptic nature and because of internal wounds not visible outside.^[103]

traumatic insemination

Pre-copulatory isolation mechanisms in animals

Biology and sexual orientation

, a series of short films about animal mating, enacted by humans, airing on the Sundance Channel

Green Porno

List of animals displaying homosexual behaviour

r/K selection theory

Polygamy in house mouse

Sexual behaviour of dogs

Sexual behaviour of horses

Bagemihl, Bruce (1999). . St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-19239-6.

Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity

Schaller, G.B. (1972). The Serengeti Lion. University of Chicago Press. 978-0226736600.

ISBN

R. F. Ewer (11 December 2013). . Springer. ISBN 978-1-4899-4656-0.

Ethology of Mammals

Nadler, Ronald D. (1980). . In Short, R. V.; Weir, Barbara J. (eds.). The Great Apes of Africa. Vol. Suppl 28. Cambridge: Journals of Reproduction and Fertility Ltd. pp. 59–70. ISBN 978-0906545041. PMID 6934312. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)

"Reproductive physiology and behaviour of gorillas"

Richard Estes (1991). . University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-08085-0.

The Behavior Guide to African Mammals: Including Hoofed Mammals, Carnivores, Primates

William F. Perrin; Bernd Wursig; J.G.M. 'Hans' (26 February 2009). Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals. Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-08-091993-5.

Thewissen

John Vandenbergh (28 August 1983). . Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-323-15651-6.

Pheromones and Reproduction in Mammals

Temple Grandin; Mark J. Deesing (22 April 2013). . Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-12-405508-7.

Genetics and the Behavior of Domestic Animals

Menna Jones; Chris R. Dickman; Michael Archer (2003). . Csiro Publishing. ISBN 978-0-643-06634-2.

Predators with Pouches: The Biology of Carnivorous Marsupials

Ernst Knobil (2006). . Gulf Professional Publishing. ISBN 978-0-12-515402-4.

Knobil and Neill's Physiology of Reproduction

Media related to Interspecies sex at Wikimedia Commons

Media related to Mammal sex at Wikimedia Commons

National Geographic

San Francisco Zoo has run , on Valentine's Day

a "sex tour" covering animal sexuality

World Science