mating behavior
Animal attraction displays
Mating behavior encompasses the actions animals perform to attract partners and reproduce—courtship displays, territorial contests, pair bonding, and copulation itself.
The term appears mainly in biology and nature documentaries: The peacock's tail is an example of mating behavior driven by sexual selection.
Applied to humans, the phrase sounds clinical or deliberately reductive: She's studying human mating behavior.
- courtship ritualBehavior to attract partners
- sperm competitionMales' gametes competing for fertilization
- monogamyOne partner at a time
- pheromonesSpecies-specific chemical messengers
- estrusOvulatory mating phase
vocalizations · love dance · polygamy · scent marking · visual displays · grooming rituals · promiscuity · dances · bioluminescence · oviposition · social hierarchies · breeding season · receptive · breeding · spawning · rut · attraction · selection
- animal behaviorinstincts, conditioning, instinct, cognition, dominance
- behaviorshabit, aggressive, agitation, conduct, passive
- ornithologyornithology, ornithologist, birding, bird watching, bird species
- whale sciencewhale songs, whale strandings, migration patterns, echolocation, photo ID
- herpetologyherpetology, taxonomy, reptile habitats, snake venom, thermoregulation
- fish breedingbreeding pair, breeding pairs, breeding season, spawning, fry
mating behaviorcelibacy
Abstaining from intimate relations
territorial defense · sexual abstinence · asexuality · social withdrawal · abstinence
mating behaviorhibernation
Prolonged winter dormancy
migration · self-preservation · immune function · self-care · senescence