(This is one of my essay homework for writing class with Mr. Bayu, I haven't finish edit it because my next essay is waiting, hehehe)

Albany Ray, the son of Sarah Azhari, was born without knowing who his biological father is. Both Ariel Peterpan and Pasha Ungu, lead vocalists of famous bands in Indonesia, have a crush on Aura Kasih but she still cannot decide which one of them will win her heart. Widyawati and Sophan Sophian were married for almost twenty six years until death separated them apart. These situations can happen to any of us and the same stories are probably experienced by certain people. But, do you know that they can also be found in animals’ lives? Do you realize some of animals have similar behavior as humans in their romantic relationship? Do humans have animal instinct in their mind or do animals have human instinct in their mind? Believe it or not, animals and humans are almost alike in the way they are look for their spouses. This statement is based on my observation and literature study analysis on animals’ behavior in the mating period. There are four categories of animals behavior that may reflect humans’ attitude toward the bond of love because they already become the good representatives to be compared with humans.

The first category is the prince charming group. If you consider yourself as a loyal and faithful person, wait until you know these two princes. The first prince is the Emperor Penguin, the largest of all penguins. Emperor penguins are known as monogamous animal which only have one partner until death do them apart. Despite the fact that they spend most of their lives apart from each other and meet only once a year in breeding spot for mating but male penguins are very patient and loyal to their spouse. In the breeding season, the mother leaves her egg to the father for two months and he doesn’t eat for that long because he must keep the egg warm under his belly until it hatches while the mom dives for feed. Together with other fathers, they huddle to  each other and stand patiently. Male penguins can lose their weight about 40% at that time. After the egg hatches, then it is the mother’s duty to warm the chick and father will find food for them. The romantic thing about Emperor penguins is that they can easily find their spouse only by recognizing their calls. Meanwhile, the second prince charming is goose which also known as symbol of loyalty. Geese are monogamous animal, too. They will stay with one partner for the rest of their life.  They will fly and swim together. Usually, they are teasing each other while swimming and face one another by lowering their necks and create love sign.

Next is the competition group. Imagine yourself as a popular girl in your community, you love flirting and boys are dying to marry you, then you are more like the Gray Whale. In mating time, female gray whale flirts to a male whale and they both will tease each other by swimming side by side across the ocean and sometimes rubbing one body to another.  During this romantic journey, the female still looks for another chance to meet a better candidate to be the father of her child and send some love signals to other males. At this level, there is still no commitment between them.  Then one male decide to join the competition and they swim together with the female between the males. Three of them will rubbing, swimming and rolling against one another until the final moment when the female make her decision to choose which one she likes more. The good thing about male whales is that they are all gentlemen. The loser one will support the winner to ‘marry’ (or in animal terms is impregnating) her and they never fight to win the female’s heart. As suggestion, whenever you want to follow this game of love, remember to make sure all candidates are open-hearted and don’t show your emotional feelings too obviously. Or, if you look for the strongest one to win your heart and too shy to express your feeling, then you may imitate Polar Bear behavior. You should give your positive impression to several persons you like. A sow or female bear leaves her paws with a scent so that boars or male bears can follow her to hunting areas. In a way to be triumphant in this competition, boars show their power by having fights with their rivals until they get scars or lose teeth, but they never fight brutally. The loser one will leave the battle before get hurt or killed and the strongest one will have the opportunity to mate with the sow. 

The third one is the bitch group. Cats, dogs, and red-sided garter snakes are examples of bitch group member. Cats are very independent animals. No matter how close you are with them and spoil them  but you will never own them. They are free spirit animals. Female cats do polyandry and like to mate with different males when she is in heat. Most of female cats don’t know who is the father of their kittens because it only lasts 4-7 days for heat period and they may have sex with many male cats during that time. Dogs also do the same thing like cats do. Indeed, dogs are human best friend because they are known as one of the loyal animals, but to their master only. They are not type of loyal animal when related to sexual relationship. It goes similarly with red-sided garter snake, even worst. Besides her polyandry behavior, a female red-sided garter snake will invite all her husbands  to join in her mating orgy party. Moreover, if you tend to be in this group, just make sure that you play safe and be responsible for your choice.

The last category is female-dominant group. What if you think that women have the power to do all the things? What if you think that you don’t need a man at all in your life but still want to have your own child? It’s easy. You can copy whiptail lizard’s way in order to have a child of yours by cloning yourself.  There are no male whiptail lizards. They are also lesbian. They will cloning themselves if they want have babies. Scientists called this cloning process as pseudocopulation, where these lesbian couple switch roles as a male or female to stimulate the eggs production in both of them. In another way, you may also choose to be a single parent like clownfish. Clownfish supports transgender because male clownfish can transform to female clownfish if the female dies or caught by human. So, the male-turn to female-clownfish will become the mother for the baby fish. The other members of this group are black-widow spider and a queen ant. Black-widow spider got its name from the reputation of female black-widow spider who sometimes kill or eat her spouse after mating. The survivor male will continue their life with other females. Likewise, a queen ant holds the highest position in ant’s kingdom and control the number of female and male eggs she places. Female are dominant in this colony. Only the queen and breeding female have the capability to reproduce while drones or winged male ants are have nothing to do except eat and then die shortly after mating. Both of black-widow spider and queen ant are strongly dominant and powerful in their society. You probably may find someone with these personalities in your community.

In conclusion, as C.S Lewis said that humans are amphibians, we are consisted of half spirit that belong to the eternal world and half of animal that inhabit time. We cannot avoid the facts that human and animal are connected to each other and in some ways are influence one another. Half of ourselves will always follow the nature and the other will follow the rules. Whether human instinct or animal instinct, the choice is given to our personal decision. These four categories are presented as examples of both of them. After all, beauty is only skin deep, I will let the judge on you, my readers.

-----***-----