Are you unlucky in love? Have you suffered a string of fleeting romances? Does love feel more distant to you than deep space? Well, don’t despair! If you think your love life is bad, just wait until you discover the romantic misadventures of these animal species!

Dangerous Liaison

Our first contender is the infamous praying mantis. The male mantis risks life and limb to woo his lady love, only to face an untimely demise when the female mantis devours her partner post-copulation. Who needs chocolates when you can have a mantis meal or two?

A Clingy Boyfriend

Under the dark depths of the ocean, the anglerfish takes the term “fusion of souls” to a whole new level—and not in a good way! Finding a mate in the black abyss can be tricky, so once the tiny male locates a larger female, he bites her and latches on. Over time, the male’s body becomes fused to his lover’s, even joining her with circulatory system. No longer able to feed himself, he becomes a parasite, relying on the female for nutrients. But there is a price to pay for his freeloading. Eventually, the male loses his eyes, fins, and internal organs, becoming little more than a portable sperm bank for the female. The bizarre unity of these deep-sea partners is a stark contrast to the romantic liaisons of soulmates taking a sunset stroll together.

Fatal Attraction

The black widow spider, a notorious symbol of danger, earns its spot on our list. After a courtship dance that may seem romantic, the male black widow faces a deadly fate. The female, armed with potent venom, dispatches her partner without a second thought. Now that’s what we call a lethal love affair!

Unwanted Love Bites

The common bedbug’s reproductive habits are anything but ordinary. Male bedbugs engage in traumatic insemination, a bizarre form of mating whereby the males deploy hypodermic genitalia to inject sperm directly into the female’s body during copulation, frequently bypassing her reproductive organs altogether.

 

Harassment, coercion and violence

 

So often in nature, love is replaced by a brutal quest for procreation. Take elephant seals, for example. The giant males resort to a macabre ritual of biting, neck-grabbing, and body slams that reads like a violent attack. The aftermath can be a haunting ordeal of broken ribs, organ damage, and even lethal brain damage, leaving 1 in every 1,000 female elephant seals as casualties of love.

Lions, for all their regal image, can be just as bad. They, too, bite the female’s neck during copulation, and unleash barbed genitalia that inflict pain upon withdrawal. The result? A defensive onslaught from the females, transforming the mating process into an unromantic battlefield.

For other species, escape from an unrelenting partner is but a dream. Once a male frog or toad has a female in his grip, he’s not going to let go until he’s ready, even if his partner wants to move on. Likewise, males of canine species such as foxes have a knot in their genitalia that gets inflates with blood and “ties” the female. This forced union leaves the pair locked together even after the unaffectionate act has reached its joyless conclusion.

 

Immaculate Conception

While the majority of animals rely on breeding to reproduce, there are exceptional females that navigate the path of independence, bringing forth offspring without ever engaging in the act of mating. Take, for instance, the intriguing case of a reticulated python at Louisville Zoo in 2012. Having never encountered a male python, she astonished her keepers by giving birth to six babies. How did this happen?

It involves a process called “parthenogenesis”—a word originating from two Greek roots that literally means “virgin creation.” While it may seem like a freak occurrence, it is surprisingly common in the tree of life and has been documented in insects, fish, reptiles, amphibians and even birds. Animals both captive and wild, including zebra sharks, Komodo dragons, American crocodiles and dozens of snake species have all produced offspring in the absence of a sexual partner. In some extraordinary cases, certain species rely exclusively on parthenogenesis for reproduction, including the desert grassland whiptail lizard, where every individual is female.

The ability to reproduce “asexually” allows animals to pass on their genes without spending energy finding a mate, and so can help sustain a species in challenging conditions. Imagine a scenario where a solitary Komodo dragon lands on an uninhabited island; through parthenogenesis, she alone could establish a population.

 

What about those aphids that overrun your garden plants? One of the reasons they can multiply so prolifically is because females born in the spring can give birth to live young without the need for male mates. There are cases, too, of Critically endangered species such as California condors and smalltooth sawfish producing offspring without any male DNA.

Essentially, in virgin birth, a female fertilises her own egg to produce offspring. It happens when a cell in a female behaves like a sperm and fuses with an egg.

For those of us who revel in single life, it’s tempting to imagine a scenario where humans could embark on a similar adventure of solo reproduction without the romantic entanglements—giving a whole new meaning to the term “single parenting.” But humans are excluded from the parthenogenetic club due to the need for a genetic contribution from both sexes.

But who knows, perhaps in some whimsical alternate universe, parthenogenic humans can raise a toast to solo parenting without the need for a Prince Charming.