50 Shades of Prey

Finding a mate in the animal kingdom isn’t always straightforward, especially for aquatic creatures. In this eye-opening session, we’ll dive into the wild world of underwater reproduction. We'll discuss the handy ability some fish have to switch sexes at will; species that use venomous love bites; build intricate sandcastles to attract mates. Whether it’s dazzling displays, unorthodox methods, or downright bizarre behaviour, this session will have you thinking about sex in the animal kingdom in a whole new way.

One of the reasons people are fascinated by dinosaurs and other extinct animals is their weird looks, and a lot of this weirdness comes from the strange features we can see on their skeletons, from the plates on a Stegosaurus’ back to the sail on a Spinosaur, to the horns and frills carried by the horned dinosaurs like Triceratops. How and why did these evolve? One possibility is that they evolved to improve the carrier’s ability to get matings, either by allowing them to fight off rivals from the same species or by acting as displays in the same way as peacock’s trains today. In this session we’ll have a look at the diversity of these strange traits in dinosaurs and we’ll discuss the evidence that the crest of Pteranodon was there because the ladies liked it, and that Triceratops horns were more important for beating up other Triceratops than they were for fighting off Tyrannosaurus rex.