'Mouse Kabobs' and Saliva: Why Animals Give Strange Gifts
Let's just say it often involves sex.
During this festive season, Weird Animal Question of the Week couldn’t help wondering: Are there any other animals that give gifts? And are their gifts any good?
Dead bugs and body parts may not seem appealing to us, but they're exactly what many animals want any time of year.
Sara Lewis, Tufts University entomologist and author of Silent Sparks: The Wondrous World of Fireflies, has just revealed some ingredients of firefly nuptial gifts.
Turns out the coiled see-through package, which you can see in this video, that the firefly male gives the female is packed with over 200 proteins and other chemicals that potentially increase the number of eggs the female lays and an enzyme to help release the gift—sort