And Then You Kiss the Bride Trivia Quiz

Answer: Inflates a throat pouch

The pouch is a gular sac (or skin or pouch) and is red in colour, reducing in size and changing to orange outside the breeding season. The most attractive pouch typically secures a female, however rival males may seek to get rid of the competition by puncturing the inflated gular sac.

Other species with gular skin include pelicans (for storing food) and cormorants (with brighter colours during the breeding season). The gular skins on cormorants and frigatebirds may be an example of parallel evolution, performing the same function in evolutionarily distant birds.

Answer: No

In being stabbed, sperm is transferred to the loser of the fight who therefore becomes the mother. Why do they fight? Possibly because more time and energy is invested in being the mother and so, from an biological viewpoint, it is better to win the fight and be the father. Such fights have been known to last up to an hour.

Answer: Using specialised olfactory organs

The olfactory (or smell) organs are used to detect pheromones given off by nearby females. Some male anglerfish develop highly specialised eyes which may also play a role in finding a mate. Generally such males only exist to find a mate and are unable to survive independently for long.

The unusual breeding strategy employed is sexual parasitism. When the much-smaller male catches up with a female, it bites into her skin and enzymes then fuse the two together, with their shared blood system now keeping him alive. When she matures, he then is able to fertilise her. Up to eight males may be attached permanently to one female, although some species stick with a one-to-one ratio.

Answer: The breeding male becomes the breeding female

Clownfish are sequential hermaphrodites. They all start off as males and can become female on maturity. The breeding male is the dominant male and, on his transformation to become the breeding female, the next in the hierarchy undertakes some rapid growth to become the new breeding male. The others remain juveniles and, as such, do not represent a threat to the breeding pair. It is usually the males which look after the eggs.

The photo shows some change.

Answer: The male gives one of his arms to the female

One of the male's eight arms is longer than the others and is modified to store spermatophores. This arm is called a hectocotylus and was first described by Aristotle. The description was not considered credible until rediscovery of such modified arms during the nineteenth century.

During mating, the hectocotylus is detached and left in a cavity in the female's mantle. Although the female can bear young over a number of years, the short-lived male can only mate once. The female is typically up to five times the size of the male and makes a papery shell as a brood chamber, which resulted in the animal's alternative name: the paper nautilus. The male produces no shell.

Answer: Urinating on the female

Starting off with a bit of nose rubbing, an interested female will then allow the male to stand on his hind legs and urinate all over her. If she likes the pheromones in his urine, she will relax her quills, laying them flat on her body, and be receptive to him.

They will mate repeatedly until he is exhausted. Female porcupines are only receptive to mating perhaps for a ten-hour period each year.

Answer: She visits his 'love garden'

The male red velvet mite's preparations include building a 'love garden', an intricate structure made of sticks and plants held together by sperm. Once complete, he makes a silken path leading to it and then sits at the end waiting for a passing female to dance for. If won over, she follows the path to the 'love garden' and impregnates herself by sitting on a sperm bubble. If a rival male finds it first, he will trash the garden, leaving his own sperm all over the place.

The photo shows the Taj Mahal, a mausoleum symbolising an emperor's love for his third wife who died during the birth of their fourteenth child.

Answer: To increase sperm survival rates

Some hermaphroditic snails use love darts to increase the likelihood of becoming a father. As hermaphrodites, both snails normally become mothers and fathers from the same courtship. Typically they engage in a mating dance which may last up to six hours. Towards the end of the dance, the dart is fired.

It can be a bit hit or miss. The snail's eyesight is not so great so the dart can miss, or go through the head or into internal organs. Where no serious damage is done, the mucus on the dart contains a hormone which switches off the sperm-digesting organ and encourages the receiving snail to store the sperm. All this increases the chances of the stabber becoming a father.

Answer: By cloning

Parthenogenesis is a form of asexual reproduction without fertilisation. It is believed that these cloning species are the result of the hybridisation of two species which produced female lizards with eggs containing the complete genetic make-up of its parent. In sexual reproduction, an egg typically contains half the genetic material of its mother with the balance coming from the father.

Answer: He dies

When a new queen bee emerges from her cell, she flies to a mid-air congregation area where drones have gathered. Drones will ignore the queen outside this area. A dozen or so males are typically involved in a mating flight and the process is explosive, resulting in the drone rupturing and losing part of his anatomy inside the queen. He dies shortly after.