The Ark Files - It's CHRISTMAS!

A time for dancing, singing, putting on your best gear, hanging up decorations and giving presents. But for many animals, it's Christmas all year round.

Dancing

Snails probably don't immediately spring to mind as great dancers but they are in fact some of the best tangoers in the business. Snails are hermaphrodites, meaning they are both male and female, so any other snail they meet is a possible mate. First, they have to get to know each other. Common garden snails will start by gently touching tentacles and lips. Then they both rear up, fully extended from their shells, until their single big "foot" is pressed to the other snail's, 'sole to sole'. Their kissing, fondling and swaying can continue for 30 minutes.

Australian cranes, or brolgas, are famous for their dancing displays. Groups of them will perform elaborate dances during the breeding season - bowing, leaping, pirouetting, flapping and arching their wings, throwing back their heads and giving a whooping call.

Dressing

Peacocks dress up in their best, biggest and brightest feathers to win a mate. There can be more than 200 feathers in that long, shimmering tail. It seems that a peahen will choose the male with the most spectacular tail. The greater the number of "eyespots" and the longer the feathers, the better his chances of winning her.

Male mandrills are almost as colourfully dressed as peacocks. The hairless, exposed parts of skin on his face and bottom are eye catching. He has a long, vivid red nose, ridged blue and white cheeks and a yellow beard, while his bottom also has similar bright red, blue and purple markings. This makes him the most highly-coloured mammal in the world and drives the girls wild.

Singing

The nightingale is one of nature's most famous singers. But why does he sing his beautiful song at night when most other birds are asleep? Well, it's because he's trying to attract the attention of the female nightingales as they travel north by night from their winter feeding grounds. Bright feathers, wild dance routines and exotically decorated bachelor pads are of no use to him in the dark because the females would not be able to see them. Instead, he sits on a branch and loudly serenades the ladies as they pass by. As the weeks of the breeding season go by, he slowly increases the length and complexity of his song, but after he has got his girl and she has laid her eggs, he stops singing until next year.

Decorating

The goby, a tiny fish found in shallow tropical waters, is into home decorating. When the male goby wants to attract a wife, he hunts for a discarded shell or sand burrow to use as a home for his future family. With his mouth he clears the inside of the shell or burrow of loose sand, and then with his fins he sweeps pebbles or little shells over the outside.

He will spend a great deal of time arranging and rearranging the sandy decorations until they are just right, and then he will wait in the entrance until the girl of his dreams swims by.

The male satin bowerbird is also into decorating. He builds an avenue of upright twigs to attract the local girls' attention and decorates this bower with colourful objects such as fruits, berries, flowers, dead insects, shells, bones, and even human litter such as bottle-tops, pen lids, drinking straws and foil.

Satin bowerbirds have a preference for blue decorations while other bowerbirds have different favourite colour schemes.

They will also paint the inside of their bowers with a mixture of saliva and chewed up charcoal, berries or fruits.

Giving gifts

We humans aren't the only ones who like presents. A male tern or kingfisher, when courting a female, will bring her a gift of fish in his bill to show what a good provider he can be.

The European bee-eater catches an insect and presents it to his girlfriend with his tail fanned and vibrating madly. He also calls to her loudly even though he has a full beak.

For the wolf spider, his very life may depend on his girlfriend liking his present. Many female spiders will eat their mates if they do not approach her very carefully and bring her something even tastier to eat than themselves.

The male wolf spider not only catches the female a nice fat juicy fly but he also gift-wraps it in a silken package. While she is busy opening her gift, he is able to mate with her in safety.

A scorpion will offer his girlfriend a nutritious ball of regurgitated spittle to win her heart. Well, as they say, it's the thought that counts!