From insects that eat their mates to snails that shoot “love darts,” the natural world is filled with wild mating strategies. In the newly opened aquarium gallery titled Animal Attraction, explore the remarkable and often surprising techniques that animals have developed for attracting mates and producing offspring. You’ll encounter hermaphroditic banana slugs, betta fish that build their nests out of bubbles, cannibalistic praying mantises, and more than a dozen other live creatures.
 

For the first time, the Academy is using iPads as exhibit labels, allowing visitors to peruse gorgeous images and watch videos of these amorous behaviors in action. And throughout the museum, Academy docents will share additional tales from the natural world, such as how giraffes know when the time is right (hint: it involves urine) and why cacao couldn’t reproduce without the help of a specific fly.
 

Read reviews in the San Francisco Chronicle and USA Today.
Learn more about the exhibit.
 

Cannibalistic mantid                                    Hermaphroditic banana slugs
 
 
 
Love is in the air—and under the sea—with special programs through March 23, 2012, including:
 

Penguin Feedings: Sea of Love Edition
Daily at 10:30 am and 3:00 pm
Learn who is mating with whom during our African penguins’ feeding time.
 

Pollination Partners
Daily at 1:00 pm
Dance like a bee and learn how flowers reproduce with the help of these insects.
 

The Magic of Life
Fridays – Mondays at 12:00 pm
Explore the link between reproduction and evolution with specimens, videos, pictures, and more.
 

Family Nature Crafts
Sundays at 11:00 am
Get creative with crafts inspired by amazing animal parents. Suitable for ages 5-10.

Love is in the air—and under the sea—this winter, as the Academy gears up for the opening of a new aquarium gallery titled Animal Attraction on February 11, 2012. From January 17 – February 8, 2012 enjoy special programs with a “birds and the bees” theme that will set the mood in anticipation of the new gallery opening.
 

New! POLLINATION PARTNERS: BEES AND FLOWERS
Daily at 1:00 pm
Pollinators like bees are a crucial link in ecosystems and agriculture around the world, allowing flowering plants to reproduce year after year. Bees, who depend on these plants for nectar, communicate the locations of flowers to each other with dances. In this fun, interactive program, discover how these pollination partners help one another, and perform a bee-dance of your very own.
 

New! SNAKES IN SPRINGTIME
Daily at 12:30 pm
How and when do limbless snakes find “love”? When springtime arrives, it signals the beginning of the reproductive cycle for snakes and many other animals. Learn how they charm one another, who nests and who doesn’t, and find out which species lay eggs and which give birth to live young.
 

PENGUIN FEEDINGS: BIRDS & BEES EDITION
Daily at 10:30 am & 3:00 pm
The Academy’s African penguins live in a fascinating social colony. These relationships—who is mating with whom, arranged marriages, and family squabbles—are always especially apparent during meal time. Watch the birds dip and dive as a biologist dons a wet suit and hands out vitamin-stuffed herring and capelin.
 

CORAL REEF DIVES: BIRDS & BEES EDITION
Daily at 11:30 am & 2:30 pm
Watch as a diver suits up in SCUBA gear and plunges into the world’s deepest living coral reef exhibit. Outfitted with an underwater microphone, the diver will discuss love on the reef—from fish and coral spawning to captive breeding programs.
 
 

SOUNDS OF THE SWAMP: BIRDS & BEES EDITION
Friday – Monday at 1:30 pm
Alligators use some surprising methods to entice a mate and then successfully rear young. Meet Claude the albino alligator, and learn about love in the swamp.
 
 
 

CHAT WITH AN ACADEMY SCIENTIST – AGES 10+
Wednesday, January 25 at 1:30 pm
Wednesday, February 8 at 1:30 pm
Meet Academy scientists who study the reproductive strategies of plants and animals all around the globe.
 
 

Do partridges live in pear trees? Is nutmeg really a nut? And what do reindeer actually eat? Find out in the Academy’s new holiday exhibit ’Tis the Season for Science, open now through January 16, 2012. Enjoy a suite of wintry festivities and family fun that celebrates the science behind some of our most familiar holiday sights, sounds, and traditions. Highlights include:
 

• A pair of live reindeer
• Indoor snow flurries twice an hour
• A Snowman Theater – an immersive digital dome shaped like a giant snowman, which plays two shows on the science of snow and water in the Universe
• An aromatic Spice Forest – displays of the raw botanical specimens from which we get cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and other holiday ingredients
• Festive programs including quiz shows, live music, dance, and theater performances
• Mounted specimens of the birds mentioned in “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” including swans, geese, colly birds, hens, doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.

 
Learn more about ’Tis the Season for Science.
 

  Snowman Theater                                       Spice Forest

Now through November 20, 2011 is your last chance to enjoy Sharktober programs at the Academy. Click here to see the schedule of all shark-related offerings, including short films, biologist talks, and more.

And don’t forget to check out the new Shark Lagoon webcam – watch the aquarium’s sharks and rays cruise in real-time from the comfort of your home!