10 Ridiculously Weird Animal Mating Rituals
9. Male Mandarinfish Shoot Their Sperm On Mating Couples
Madarinfish sex is all a bit fishy. When a pair of mandarinfish mate the female releases a cloud of about 200 eggs, which the male releases his sperm over. Nothing really odd about that to be fair.
However…
We’ve all heard the phrase “size doesn’t matter” right? Well apparently this isn’t the case if you’re a mandarinfish. Due to the low numbers of sexually active females in the mandarinfish population competition among the males tends to be high. So even if you’ve got a great personality, if you’re a weaker male mandarinfish then chances are a member of the opposite sex isn’t going to pick you as a mate.
These weaker male mandarinfish therefore respond to not getting to mate in perhaps the creepiest possible way. They wait until another pair of mandarinfish are mating and shoot their sperm at the mating couple in the hope of randomly fertilising the female's eggs.
They then button up their trench coat and leave to look for another set of victims (presumably).