We always think of “having a baby” as a sweet greeting card moment. But, really, for many species, the process of reproduction is really freaking weird, and sometimes downright painful. Like anglerfish that absorb their mates, bugs that pierce and inseminate, and toads that incubate offspring under their skin. Just to name a few.
Biology is a hard science and also a hate crime against your peace. Here are some critters that have to do some seriously insane stuff to stay alive.
1. Deep-Sea Anglerfish: The boyfriend becomes an organ
In the deep ocean, finding a date is hard, so male anglerfish commit in the most unsettling way possible. He bites the female, then fuses into her body over time until he’s basically a permanent appendage that supplies sperm on demand. So romantic.
2. Bed Bugs: ‘Traumatic insemination’ is exactly what it sounds like
Male bed bugs don’t use the usual route. They pierce the female’s abdomen and inject sperm straight into her body cavity. Researchers literally call this “traumatic insemination,” because that’s exactly what that is. Sleep tight.
3. Seahorses: Dads do the pregnancy
Seahorses flipped the script and walked away whistling. After courtship, the female transfers eggs into the male’s brood pouch, where he fertilizes them and carries them until birth. NOAA says that the gestation period can run two to four weeks, and the male can release anywhere from a few dozen to up to 1,000 baby seahorses. Overachiever energy.
4. Barnacles: Stuck to a rock, armed with an extendable solution
Barnacles live cemented in place, which makes dating a logistics problem. Their answer is an absurdly long penis relative to body size, stretching up to eight times their body length, according to the Smithsonian. They’ve also been documented adjusting penis shape based on wave conditions, which is a sentence I did not expect to type today.
5. Clownfish: The boss becomes the mom
Clownfish start life male. If the dominant female disappears, the breeding male can change sex to become female, and the next-in-line male steps up. UC Berkeley’s evolution site lays out the social hierarchy logistics. Pixar really left out the wildest chapter.
6. Whiptail Lizards: No males required
Some whiptail species are all-female and reproduce via parthenogenesis, meaning unfertilized eggs develop into offspring that are genetic equivalents of the mother. The National Park Service describes this as nature’s “clone yourself” setting.
7. Surinam Toad: The back becomes a nursery
This is the one you show people when they say frogs are “cute.” The female releases eggs, the male fertilizes them, then pushes them onto her back. Her skin grows around them into pocket-like cells where the young develop until they emerge. The San Diego Zoo says she can carry up to about 100 eggs in those back pockets, which is…a lot.
8. Spotted Hyenas: The ‘Wait, That’s a Female?’ situation
Spotted hyenas are the mammal exception that ruins every veterinarian’s “just check the genitals” shortcut. Females have a penis-like clitoris that protrudes 7 inches from their bodies, and they mate, pee, and give birth through it. Males have to pull off an awkward balancing act to make sex happen, and birth has to travel through that same narrow, elongated tube, which also turns delivering pups into a brutal ordeal.
9. Nudibranch sea slugs: Disposable penis, next question
Some sea slugs are hermaphrodites that mate by fencing with penises. Smithsonian reports on a nudibranch species that sheds its penis after sex, then grows a replacement segment so it can go again, with a turnaround that can be as fast as 24 hours. The ocean remains undefeated in the weird department.
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