Mating

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In biology, mating is the pairing of opposite-sex or hermaphroditic organisms for copulation and, in social animals, also to raise their offspring. For animals, mating methods include random mating, disassortative mating, assortative mating, or a mating pool.

In some birds, for example, it includes nest-building and feeding offspring. The human practice of making domesticated animals mate and of artificially inseminating them is part of animal husbandry.

Copulation is the union of the sex organs of two sexually reproducing animals for insemination and subsequent internal fertilization. The two individuals may be of opposite sexes or hermaphroditic, as is the case with, for example, snails.

For more information about Mating, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.


News tagged with mating

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Opposites attract: Monkeys choose mating partners with different genes

Biology / Evolution

created Nov 24, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

The world's largest species of monkey 'chooses' mates with genes that are different from their own to guarantee healthy and strong offspring, according to a new research study.


Ancestry attracts, but love is blind

Biology / Other

created Nov 20, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 1

People preferentially marry those with similar ancestry, but their decisions are not necessarily based on hair, eye or skin colour. Research, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Biology, shows that M ...


Female choice benefits mothers more than offspring

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Oct 22, 2009 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (3) | comments 2

The great diversity of male sexual traits, ranging from peacock's elaborate train to formidable genitalia of male seed beetles, is the result of female choice. But why do females choose among males? In a new study published ...


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Loyal alligators display the mating habits of birds

Biology / Ecology

created Oct 07, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0

Alligators display the same loyalty to their mating partners as birds reveals a study published today in Molecular Ecology. The ten-year-study by scientists from the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory reveal ...


Mother knows best: Females control sperm storage to pick the best father

Mother knows best: Females control sperm storage to pick the best father

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Sep 08, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have found new evidence to explain how female insects can influence the father of their offspring, even after mating with up to ten males. A team from the University of Exeter has ...


Fatal (fiscal) attraction: Tightwads and spendthrifts tend to marry (w/ Video)

Other Sciences / Social Sciences

created Aug 27, 2009 | popularity 3 / 5 (1) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- When it comes to love and money, opposites really do attract, says a University of Michigan researcher.


What she sees in you -- facial attractiveness explained

What she sees in you -- facial attractiveness explained

Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry

created Aug 24, 2009 | popularity 3.2 / 5 (19) | comments 10

(PhysOrg.com) -- When it comes to potential mates, women may be as complicated as men claim they are, according to psychologists.


Fungus found in humans shown to be nimble in mating game

Fungus found in humans shown to be nimble in mating game

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Aug 12, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Brown University researchers have discovered that Candida albicans, a human fungal pathogen that causes thrush and other diseases, pursues same-sex mating in addition to conventional opposite-sex mating.


Study shows how camels keep their cool

Study shows how camels keep their cool

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jul 15, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- UQ research has found when it comes to camels, staying cool may be the key to reproductive success.


Spread your sperm the smart way

Biology / Evolution

created Jul 09, 2009 | popularity 2.8 / 5 (4) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Attractive males release fewer sperm per mating to maximise their chances of producing offspring across a range of females, according to a new paper on the evolution of ejaculation strategies. The findings ...


Male seahorses like big mates

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jul 07, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Male seahorses have a clear agenda when it comes to selecting a mating partner: to increase their reproductive success. By being choosy and preferring large females, they are likely to have more and bigger eggs, as well as ...


Good males are bad fathers

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jun 25, 2009 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (4) | comments 2

Contrary to predictions, males of high genetic quality are not very successful when it comes to fertilizing eggs. A new study on seed beetles by Swedish and Danish scientists Göran Arnqvist and Trine Bilde shows that when ...


Nematode courting caught on camera

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jun 25, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Researchers studying the nervous control of nematode mating behavior have produced video footage of a male worm preparing to mate with a hermaphrodite.


Tasmanian devils listed as endangered in Australia (AP)

Tasmanian devils listed as endangered in Australia

Biology / Ecology

created May 22, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0

(AP) -- The Tasmanian devil, a snarling fox-sized marsupial made notorious by its Looney Tunes cartoon namesake Taz, was listed in Australia as an endangered species Friday because of a contagious cancer ...


When climate is iffy, birds sing a more elaborate tune

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 21, 2009 | popularity 3 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Why is it that some birds sing such elaborate songs and others not so much? A new study published online on May 21st in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, says that climate patterns might be part of the answer.