From the underwater dance of seahorses to the enthusiastic leg-lifts of the peacock spider, the animal kingdom is full of quirky and intriguing methods to impress the opposite sex.

A joint United States-New Zealand government proposal to protect more than 770 thousand square miles of the Ross Sea was put forward last year, but did not gain full support.

The romantic ideal of finding one mate for life is primarily a human aspiration. Animals which are believed to "mate for life" comprise only a handful of species.