aka “Don’t Make Me Piss At Your Face To Get Your Attention!”

Usually in a particular neighborhood, one male establishes himself as the local ogre, the dominant alpha male. And once his status is secured, he enforces it. Every night, he goes out and beats up all the other lobsters in the neighborhood, kicks them all out of their houses, just to remind them who’s in charge.

Females apparently find this abuse particularly arousing, and they become very interested in the dominant alpha male. [Lobsters] all know where each other lives. It’s very interesting—they have a map of the neighborhood.

Females will regularly go and visit the entrance to the alpha male’s shelter after he’s been beating them up. They follow him home, and they perform a variety of courtship rituals.

The problem is, the alpha male is so belligerent, he’s not really interested in romance. He just wants to beat people up all the time. So the females have to cajole him into a romantic mood.

How does a female seduce the male?

Essentially by drugging him into submission. When lobsters fight and when they flirt—in both cases they communicate with each other basically by pissing in each other’s faces. They have these little urine-release nozzles right under their eyes, and they squirt urine at each other.

The urine is laced with various kinds of information. In a fight it could be a communication of how aggressive or belligerent or dominant a lobster is.

The females, in this case of mating, go to the dominant male’s shelter entrance and squirt their pheromone-laced urine into his shelter. This relaxes [the alpha male] and reduces his aggression. He starts to swoon a little bit. He fans these little flippers under his tale to spread the urine around his apartment and savor its aroma.

The females do this a few times while they’re [over] to visit. He gradually becomes used to them. [Females] do a few other little courtship rituals, some little dances and stuff.

Gradually one of them will get bold enough to push her way into his lair. He will by then be subdued enough to let this happen.

What happens after seduction?

She has to take her clothes off in order to mate. Female lobsters only mate right after they shed their shell. So by moving in with him, they’re getting protection from this dominant male in their most vulnerable moment.

So they shed their shell, and this beautiful copulatory event occurs. The details are probably too racy for nationalgeographic.com.

Then they have this bond for about ten days to two weeks. She lives with him until her shell hardens up again, and then she moves out. That’s it. It’s done.

Except that there’s a new female waiting on the doorstep. So all the females of the neighborhood create this sisterhood, and they take turns mating with that one dominant male.

The scientists I write about came up with a name for this—it’s also evidenced in other kinds of creatures. It’s called serial monogamy. Unfortunately, the beta males in the neighborhood don’t get any action.

It sounds like high school. Gals pined for the bad boys.

Or just the bad boy on the block—the worst boy on the block.

[Link]

published on Jan 05 05 at 1:55 pm under category : curiosities.