Generally, mating habits and reproductive strategies seem pretty uniform throughout the animal-and-human kingdom, at least on the surface. Penis goes in, and sometime later, babies come out. But it’s what happens between those two events that leave a lot of room for evolutionary interpretation. And various species have developed strikingly different methods to ensure their genes are passed down. 

These methods are sometimes devious, oftentimes disgusting, and occasionally seem downright impossible …

The Bird Evolved Specifically To Cock-Block

Evolution usually happens little by little, but sometimes it happens by a little bit more. A mutation in a supergene, a chunk of chromosome containing about 100 genes, may allow multiple changes to take hold. And it endowed ruff birds with incredible sexual subterfuge: males that look like females to get laid.

Two male Ruff at Diergaarde Blijdorp, Netherlands.

Arjan Haverkamp

It’s the same strategy employed by all those ’70s hair bands.

Basic male ruffs, a type of wading sandpiper, are called territorials or independents. They’re ostentatiously colored and patterned, so each looks unique. They also sport feathery head-tufts and (eponymously) extravagant neck plumage—they’re called ruffs after the decorative collars old-timey people wore to draw attention from their oozing syphilitic sores:

Portrait of Anna Rosina Marquart, née Tanck

Michael Conrad Hirt

They were constantly attacked by confused horny birds.

To initiate mating, the territorials strut around the “lek,” a large gathering of males and females, flashing their plumage and performing aggressive moves to entice females. And when enticed, the females crouch and display their cloaca. Pretty simple so far.