Wildlife
Courtship displays are performed by animals seeking to advertise their willingness to mate, attract a partner and sometimes to warn off rivals. Famous examples include the dazzling display of a peacock's tail, and the elaborate dancing and acrobatics performed by birds of paradise. In monogamous animals, such as swans and albatrosses, the male and female often do a mutual courtship display, to reaffirm and reinforce the bond between them.
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Genetic determination
A male European praying mantis loses his head, but that doesn't stop him mating.
A male European praying mantis loses his head, but that doesn't stop him mating.
Objects of desire
A satin bower bird decorates his pad with care to impress a female.
In courtship, gifts are always appreciated. In Australia the satin bowerbird has an eye for the presents his partner adores. In this case her favourite colour is blue. His bower is not a nest, it's a place of seduction and he must keep up its maintenance to impress any females that come to call. She visits all the bowers in the neighbourhood to judge each male on his home decorating skills. She's hard to impress. An experienced male won't accept rejection lightly, he just works harder to win her over. The more blue trinkets he accumulates the more he turns her eye. His interest in home decorating is purely biological, the harder he works the more he proves his fitness. When he has amassed the bowerbird equivalent of wealth, he has proved his genetic worth.
Dying for sex
A male antechinus's frantic mating kills him off, leaving more food for his offspring.
Antechinus is a marsupial mouse which squeezes bouts of passion into just a few energetic days. In early spring the male's only goal is to mate with as many partners as possible. Each session lasts several hours and as soon as it finishes, he leaves to track down a new partner. Each male aims to track down every female in the neighbourhood. All this activity leaves him with little time to eat, drink or sleep and in time the stress starts to wear him down. Although exhausted, rampant hormones urge him on to another encounter. Over the two week breeding season he ages a lifetime. Run down and tired, he is literally on his last legs. All the males are soon gone, leaving the females to bring up the babies. His sacrifice makes genetic sense as more offspring will survive if he isn't there to compete for food.
Manakin mating dance
Each species of manakin has its own style of courtship display.
Each species of manakin has its own style of courtship display.
Courtship feeding
Blue-cheeked bee-eaters court their mates on migration.
Blue-cheeked bee-eaters court their mates on migration.
Greater flamingo
Lesser flamingo
African penguin
Emperor penguin
King penguin
Macaroni penguin
Magellanic penguin
Snares crested penguin
Bewick's swan
Goldeneye
Mandarin duck
Spectacled eider
Whooper swan
Collared dove
Pigeon
Stock dove
Turtle dove
Great spotted woodpecker
Black-necked grebe
Clark's grebe
Great crested grebe
Typical grebes
Andean condor
Common buzzard
Crowned eagle
Eleonora's falcon
Hen harrier
Honey buzzard
Lammergeier
Marsh harrier
Osprey
Red kite
Common crane
Demoiselle crane
Great bustard
Red-crowned crane
Siberian crane
Black grouse
Capercaillie
Peacock
Ptarmigan
Temminck's tragopan
Wild turkey
Pied kingfisher
Southern carmine bee-eater
Tawny owl
Kakapo
Cape gannet
Northern gannet
Blackbird
Blue bird of paradise
Carrion crow
Chaffinch
Goldcrest
Greenfinch
Grey wagtail
Hooded crow
Jay
King bird of paradise
Magnificent bird of paradise
Magpie
Manakins
Nightingale
Raggiana bird of paradise
Red-billed chough
Redstart
Rook
Sand martin
Siskin
Six-wired bird of paradise
Superb bird of paradise
Vogelkop bowerbird
Waxwing
Wire-tailed manakin
Wren
Arctic skua
Arctic tern
Avocet
Puffin
Stone curlew
Buff-necked ibis
Andean hillstar
Marvellous spatuletail
Black-browed albatross
Snow petrel
Wandering albatross
Waved albatross
Triceratops
American crocodile
Chinese alligator
Gharial
Adder
Boa constrictor
Broadley's flat lizard
Eyelash viper
Frilled lizard
Galápagos land iguana
Sand lizard
Thorny devilCourtship display is a special, sometimes ritualised, set of behaviours which some animals perform as part of courtship. Courtship behaviours can include special calls, postures, and movements, and may involve special plumage, bright colours or other ornamentation. A good example is the 'dancing' done by male birds of paradise. Such behaviour has multiple purposes, but the first and foremost is to identify the species of the animal performing the display, and hence to prevent biologically wasteful matings between different species. For example, each of the British tit species displays a characteristic that distinguishes them from the others: the great tit swells its chest to show off its black stripe, the crested tit raises its crest, the bearded tit puffs out its black cheeks.
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