Bats go quiet during fall mating season

Date: May 2, 2018

Source: Wake Forest University

Giving someone the "silent treatment" during courtship might not be the best strategy for romance. But, new research shows hoary bats fly with little or no echolocation at all as a possible mating-related behavior.

The findings challenge the long-standing assumption that bats are reliant on echolocation, the use of high-frequency sounds to detect objects, for nocturnal navigation. The research also might help explain why thousands of bats are killed each year by wind turbines.

"Inconspicuous Echolocation in Hoary Bats," a new study by Wake Forest University research assistant professor of biology Aaron Corcoran and Theodore Weller of the USDA Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station, appears in this month's Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Continued  

Tegu lizards warm up for mating season – via Herp Digest

by Helen Thompspn, 1/22/16, Science News

Despite their cold-blooded reputation, tegu lizards boost their body heat while on the prowl for a mate, biologists report January 22 in Science Advances.

Like other ectotherms, South American tegu lizards (Tupinambis merianae) draw heat from their environment, sunning themselves in spring and summer and hibernating in autumn and winter. Upon waking from their seasonal slumber, the reptiles search for a mate.

Researchers from Canada and Brazil monitored body temperature in a group of captive lizards through these seasonal shifts. At night during mating season, their bodies stayed significantly warmer (by up to 10 degrees Celsius) than the air. The lizards maintained this temperature difference for up to eight days without the help of sunlight.

Researchers saw a steady rise in heart rate and body temperature, suggesting that tegu lizards have an unusual ability to produce and sustain body heat. Though the exact mechanism remains unclear, metabolic changes that come with reproduction could drive up the lizards’ body temperatures, the researcher suspect. The work lends credence to the idea that reproduction played a role in the evolution of warm-bloodedness.

Tarantula Mating Season 2013: Lust-Filled Spiders Come Above Ground, Terrify Everyone

Bigfoot may be a hoax, but if you live in California, you'll likely face something else that's big, hairy and totally real.

It's Tarantula Lovefest 2013.

"This weekend or next weekend is going to be the biggest spider movement of all," Al Wolf, director of the Sonoma County Reptile Rescue told CBS News Saturday."All the males will be looking for the girls so it's gonna be eight-legged love."

Male tarantulas mostly live underground in burrows, but during mating season, their lust brings them up to the outside world in search of females, who are waiting in their own burrows.

If droves of randy tarantulas running amok wasn't creepy enough, their mating process is. Males carry their sperm on the outside of their bodies. They weave a "sperm web," where they keep their sperm until they find the lady tarantula of their dreams.

While the spiders may terrify humans, it's the male tarantulas who are really getting the raw end of this deal. If a tarantula tryst happens when the female is hungry, she's apt to devour him, according to National Geographic.

You shouldn't have to worry about spider attacks, though. Worry instead about drunk wasps swarming through the U.K., or the freakishly giant hornets that have killed dozens of people and injured over a thousand in China.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/06/tarantula-mating-2013-california_n_4053774.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news

Size matters for 'sex cheat' frogs

Smaller treefrogs are more likely to "cheat" their way to a mate, French scientists have found.

The team studied the response of differently sized European treefrogs to a chorus of mating calls.

They found that smaller males lurked near the sound of an attractive call, rather than calling more frequently than their larger rivals.

Research suggests that "cheat" tactics are mainly caused by the intrinsic disadvantage of being small.

The study, which is published in the journal Animal Behaviour, was carried out by a team from the University of Lyon, France.

The scientists wanted to learn more about what causes animals to use "parasitic tactics" rather than "bourgeois tactics" during the mating season.

"Bourgeois" or "classic" tactics involve a high-energy investment and competition for reproduction, whereas "parasitic" or "sneaking" tactics involve exploiting the energy invested by another male.

Continued:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/19886131

Horseshoe Crab Mating Ritual Is The Oldest Beach Orgy

Right now, these prehistoric crabs are getting straight freak-nasty at a shore near you.

Yes, it's springtime, which means horseshoe crabs are once again hosting the longest-running beach party the world has ever known. It's a peculiar mating ritual in which tens of thousands of the arthropods take to beaches -- many of them on the East Coast of the United States -- and leave millions of fertilized eggs.

The Washington Post exposed these sex-crazed crabs, noting that a sharp decline in the Limulus polyphemus population has led environmentalists to follow the horseshoe crab on its epic orgy.

Hot.

The ancient ritual involves several males latching onto a female -- who is 40-percent larger than her male counterparts -- until she burrows into the sand and drops her eggs. That's when the males pounce and fertilize. The orgy starts in spring, peaks during full and new moons of late May, and ends around mid-July, according to The Brooklyn Paper.

Read on and watch video:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/11/horseshoe-crab-orgy_n_1509445.html?ref=weird-news