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The female stood with the tail held sharply to one side, and the quills on the back lying very flat. The male stood on his hind legs, while the front legs grasped the sides of the female. There was no repetition of the act. The male's urethra is 115-120 mm long, and his penis is 75 mm, so the he doesn't need to be as close to the female as one ...

As both @Rory M and @Alexander Galkin suggest, there are various non-visual mating behaviors to allow these species to select mates and also allow taxonomists and researchers to identify these species. And they hit on the two major ones, courtship rituals (mating calls, throat bulging, dancing) and pheromones. Let's have a look at some two examples: The ...

Cases of homosexuality have been described in numerous species, including primates, and the wikipedia link posted by @shigeta lists and describes some of them. It could be difficult to untangle the difference between an animal not being able to identify sexes very well, or, deliberately mating to anyone and those actively making a choice to engage in ...

Of course. There's several fertility tests available to determine the quality and quantity of egg reserve, and whether or not the there are abnormalities in the uterus. However, some of them are invasive procedures, and all of them should be performed by a professional. I doubt the layperson would know what they're looking at on an Ovarian Ultrasound. If ...

In most species, females are pregnant as often as they can be. Since the availability of sex is rarely a limiting factor, it seems likely that female bonobos are as "always" pregnant as other chimps and socially living primates. The actual rate of pregnancy will be hormonally limited by things such as reduced fertility during lactation and so on.

Shuster, SM & C Sassaman (1997) Genetic interaction between male mating strategy and sex ratio in a marine isopod. Nature 388: 373-377 As described in this paper, the chromosomal system of sex determination in Paracerceis sculpta is ZW=females, ZZ=males. Genetic evidence indicates that the morph of a ZZ male is determined by a second locus, Ams ...