In biology, mating is the pairing of opposite-sex or hermaphroditic organisms for copulation. In social animals, it also includes the raising of their offspring. 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 animals, mating methods include random mating, disassortative mating, assortative mating, or a mating pool. In some birds, it includes such behaviours as nest-building and feeding offspring. The human practice of mating domesticated animals and of artificially inseminating them is part of animal husbandry.
Read more about Mating: In Animals, In Plants and Fungi
Other articles related to "mating, matings":
... Mating times for this species are highly dependant upon weather conditions and prey availability ... Canabalism during mating can be observed in many different species of mantids (usually 6-30% of the time) and Litaneutria minor is no exception, with nearly all females eating the male's ... This unusually high percentage of cannibalism during mating is not common in most mantid species ...
... probably plays a very little role, if any, in the mating process ... attempting to mate with dead females, which shows that they rely heavily on odor for mating ... the former situation, females would not have to select the males for mating ...
... See also Plant sexuality Like in animals, mating in other Eukaryotes, such as plants and fungi, denotes sexual conjugation ... achieved without physical contact between mating individuals (see pollination), and in some cases, e.g ... in fungi no distinguishable male or female organs exist (see isogamy) however, mating types in some fungal species are somewhat analogous to sexual dimorphism in animals, and determine whether or not two individual ...
... The spermatophore of Cressida cressida is modified into an external mating plug known as a sphragis (plural sphragides) ... obtain from the spermataphore, hence multiple matings provide female butterflies with additional resources ...
... Mating is a novel by American author Norman Rush ... Mating won the 1991 National Book Award for Fiction ...
Famous quotes containing the word mating:
“He’s one of those know-it-all types that, if you flatter the wig off him, he chatter like a goony bird at mating time.”
—Michael Blankfort. Lewis Milestone. Johnson (Reginald Gardner)
“The far-off clinching and mating of arches, the leap and thrust of the stone, carrying a great roof overhead, awed and silenced her.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The elephant, not only the largest but the most intelligent of animals, provides us with an excellent example. It is faithful and tenderly loving to the female of its choice, mating only every third year and then for no more than five days, and so secretly as never to be seen, until, on the sixth day, it appears and goes at once to wash its whole body in the river, unwilling to return to the herd until thus purified. Such good and modest habits are an example to husband and wife.”
—St. Francis De Sales (1567–1622)