5 Weird Courtship Rituals Worse Than Tinder

5 Land Snails

Land snails are hermaphroditic creatures, meaning every single one has the capability to bear children. That doesn’t mean, however, they can reproduce without a partner. They still need the help of another snail, and a specific appendage. No, not the one you’re thinking of. To make a snail mommy-ready, its mate fires a special dart into its head that injects it with a magic mucus that prepares it for pregnancy. 

Imagine getting hit with the world’s grossest tranquilizer gun, and then having to give birth.

4 Anglerfish

Nobody outside of H.R. Giger is looking to watch anglerfish mate, and once you find out how they do it, that number’s dropping even lower. Their relationship is parasitic, and I don’t mean emotionally. Male anglerfish, which are tiny, toothless little fish, latch onto a female and, over time, are absorbed into her body — as in, their skin literally fuses together and they turn into basically an attached sperm sac she can use if she feels the need. 

The males are so pathetic that for a long time, scientists thought they’d never seen one, assuming the little freaks stuck on the female’s bellies were babies. To be honest, though, we can all think of somebody we know whose relationships don’t seem that far off.

3 Black Widows

Black widow mating is exactly as metal and nightmarish as you’d imagine. First off, the male has to clear a pretty huge barrier to entry: not being immediately eaten. If you think approaching a date’s front door to pick them up is intimidating, at least there’s an almost zero-percent chance they’ll confuse you for prey. Even if they make it onto her web in one piece, and impress her enough to do the dirty, some black widows still haven’t weathered the “being food” storm entirely. The female eastern black widow occasionally, but not always, consumes the male during mating. 

It’s the not knowing that has to be the worst, right?

2 Giraffes

Animals sniffing each other’s urine is gross, but far from unusual. If you have a dog, you’ve spent a good portion of your walks watching your best friend take deep whiffs of some other dog’s whizz. What’s a giraffe to do, however, when the ground is so far away that they can’t capably smell the puddles to figure out who’s in heat? A simple interception is in order — which involves the male lowering their head and allowing the female to pee into their mouth. At this point, they take some deep whiffs, like some sort of piss sommelier, to figure out if she is indeed in heat. 

Honestly, good bit by the females who aren't in heat to pee in their mouth anyways.

1 Hippos

Hippos make giraffe’s pee-swapping process look like a gerbil turd in comparison to their ritual, which is more like trying to change Andre the Giant’s diaper after three days of nothing but dairy and cruciferous vegetables. It starts with a fart — one or many, in an attempt to get the female’s attention. Next, the male starts to defecate and urinate wildly, while helicoptering their tail to spread it as far as possible, which would probably be a great way to fertilize a lawn. 

If the female has watched all this and deemed him deserving of her love, she’ll return the favor by defecating all over the male. 

And here I thought hippos were from Africa, not Germany.