🔗 Share this article

This holiday morning, do you fret about selecting the perfect gift for that someone special? I always try, but wherever I look the suggestions flood in with impractical ideas. No, I have no desire for a candle with a poultry aroma, because we're preparing the bird itself. Nor do I want a sunrise alarm clock, since opening the blinds works just fine. And I definitely don’t want a salmon DNA pink collagen jelly mask, because that genetic material originates in fish semen. Were I seeking aquatic semen on my face, I'd simply tickle some pollocks.

Seeking Ideas In the Natural World

So if you’re always looking for gift ideas, my advice is: learn from the animal kingdom. Our species did not create gifting. The practice has existed for over 100 million years, well before humans appeared. Aided by evolution, this has given creatures ample time to perfect gift-giving. Indeed, certain arachnids even gift-wrap their offerings!

Excluding fitness gear and other things I don’t like, we can identify five main types of Christmas gift: edibles, homeware, bling, skincare and clothing. The animal kingdom has them all covered.

Culinary Presents: High-Protein Treats to Artisan Kebabs

Certain cuckoo species give their partners nutritious morsels including insects, frogs and lizards. But if you prefer their meat skewered, then look to the butcher bird, also known as the butcher bird. Males impale prey, such as bugs and rodents, on sharp thorns and twigs to create artisan kebabs.

Certain insects gift their beaus salivary offerings, but these aren’t ordinary globs. These are scorpionfly spitballs, created from the freshest saliva sourced from swollen labial glands of only the fittest males. The delicacy is packed with nutrients, a key reason why females prefer males with big balls.

An additional factor is that the fittest males make the biggest spitballs. When I say “fit” I don’t mean “looks great in a leather jacket”, though that may be true. I refer to genetic fitness.

These presents are offered prior to mating, thus, by selecting the male with the largest gift, the female is also selecting genetic quality. She then eats the delicacy while mating but ends copulation as soon as it’s all gone. Larger gifts result in extended mating sessions, during which the male can transfer additional sperm and the female can’t mate with anyone else. This explains the male's motivation for with such an elaborate offering.

Homeware and Bling

Adélie penguins don’t give food, but they do present things for the home. In Antarctica, where they live, one cannot find home improvement store, so the birds must source their offerings from their surroundings. Each breeding season, the males gather small stones and start making their nest. These crucial components are rare, prompting some opportunists to pilfer stones from their neighbours. But when a male gives a pebble to a female, it is a sign his readiness for commitment. Consider it the avian version of a diamond ring. The rock doesn’t go on her finger, though. If she is interested, she accepts the pebble and adds it to the nest. Subsequently, after a few finishing touches, they are ready to start their family.

Speaking of bling, crows excel at this gift category. Numerous stories of people who made friends with wild corvids and later received metal caps, screws, buttons and other shiny items. In one notable case, a couple in Florida were once given a diamond bracelet by a crow they fed regularly. This is particularly endearing because while most animals offer gifts in the hope of scoring, crows seem to give simply for the joy of it.

The Pinnacle of Combination Gift: Sponges

In Western Australia, dolphins have been spotted plucking clumps of marine sponge from the seabed and utilizing them in interesting ways. On occasion, when they’re rummaging for fish, they place the sponges over their rostrum to help protect their sensitive snouts. And sometimes, when males want to woo females, they don them like jaunty hats before presenting them as presents.

By doing this, dolphins ingeniously merge two final categories of holiday gifts. Sea sponges are clothing and skincare. To make it even better, when males give their sponge hats away, they frequently adopt a U-shaped “banana pose” and produce a whistling sound via their blowhole.

This stands in contrast to the half-arsed giving from pets – like a cat leaving a dead mouse in an obscure corner – or certain individuals. Dolphin presents are thoughtful, serve multiple uses, ethically gathered and presented with panache. We can all learn from them. A famous singer may have said all she wants during the holidays is a loved one, however, my single holiday wish, is to be given a sponge-based headwear and skin guard by a dolphin that serenades me with style.