When animals mate, do they know that they are doing it to reproduce?

Question

Do animals know when they mate that they are reporducing themselves or is it just instinct that drives them?

Answer 1

All the mammals (don't know about birds, reptilians don't) have limbic system (the emotion part) in their brains. Thus they should be able to enjoy sex as much as humans. All the mammals produce approximately the same chemicals associated with emotions as humans. Like adrenaline (stress, fear etc..), endorphin (pleasure etc..), testosterone (sexual arousal etc..)

Abstract thinking is totally another issue. A being doesn't need it to enjoy sex. In fact at the very moment of a very good orgasm, you loose your ability to think. You just experience and feel. The limbic system is totally in control. That is your animalistic moment.

Answer 2

This a harder question to answer than it first appears.

To begin with, as far as we know, being able to project thoughts into the future can only be accomplised through symbolic communication and understanding. At this time, although all kinds of "breakthroughs" concerning how one animal or another approximates a human trait, we think that only the human brain is capable of thinking symbolically.

If that premise is true, then reason dictates that other animals (and this would include dolphins) do not "know" that having sex now may result in reproduction at some future time.

Birds build nests by instinct, not because their readying a nursery for baby birds. As smart as dolphins may seem to be, they are performing natural behaviors, but they have been conditioned to perform on command. (If you ever go to a park like "Sea World," notice that the trainers always say, "The whale's next behavior will be......" They never says "trick.")

According to Darwin's theory, all life forms struggle to exist long enough to reproduce. This is as true of lilies as it is of elephants as it is of human beings.

Several hundred thousand years ago, the forerunner of human beings became a carnivore. Up until then, human-like creatures only ate fruits and nuts. A new theory hypothesizes that it was the consumption of animal flesh that provided enough protein for the brain to grow in complexity.

So, like other animals, it is unlikely that our long-ago ancestors realized that the sex act had anything to do with reproduction. However, the female of MOST (but not all) other animals only "come into season" at certain times of the year. Human females do not have that temporal constraint. Therefore, I will speculate that it is only human females who actually enjoy the sexual act on a regular basis. And, even when other animal females are "in heat," there's no evidence to show that they obtain any pleasure from intercourse.

Then, there's my ex-wife........

Answer 3

No, they are not aware that they are creating offspring. They are not even aware that sex creates babies. They don't know what "sex" is (they don't use the word "sex"). They aren't able to REASON, like if you do act A, it creates consequence B. They aren't able to do that unless the consequence is immediate, as in Pavlov's dogs being able to associate a ringing bell with food so they start to salivate as soon as they hear the bell. But it's not like they can "think through" the reasoning process.

So no, they're not running around thinking that they better find some puppy protection because there's gonna be a lot of little pups in a litter to look after if they "couple".

It's just a very primitive instinct that they have. They don't understand the meaning behind it. Monkeys might be able to figure it out, given that their DNA is 98% the same as ours and have been shown to be capable of some reasoning patterns, but I'm not sure that it's been established that even they know that sex creates babies. Heck, even a lot of humans can't appreciate the ramifications of sex.

Great question!

Answer 4

Via the discovery chanel, yes they know they are reporducing and that is all they know! Dolphins and humans are the only known animals to have sex for pleasure!!

Answer 5

Probably just the human animal consciously understands it.

But many animals build nests or have other behaviors to prepare for the young. And that usually follows shortly after mating, so who knows?

Answer 6

Yes, but contrary to popular belief that only humans and dolphins have sex for pleasure, primates also join the group.

This has been shown in documentaries and primates as well as other animals will also masturbate.

Answer 7

Do animals really stop to think about anything?