Thursday’s Google Doodle celebrates Valentine’s Day 2019 and “the universal, undeniable power of love.”
In America, 250 million roses will be sent to loved ones, an estimated 10,408 children will be conceived and countless boxes of chocolates scoffed. But love, says Google, “comes in all shapes and sizes—or even species!”
Today’s featured animation shows two enamored worms slither up next to one another to form the shape of a heart, then ladybugs and spiders repeat the trick, creating love-hearts out of a partially eaten leaf and a freshly spun web.
And the doodle is backed up by cold, hard science. Ladybugs are indeed capable of love, though they’re also known for their promiscuity, while some male spiders fall in love so hard that they shrivel up and die after copulation; and worms are proof that love is blind.
The Doodle itself prompted users from around the world to share the love:
But it’s not such a rosy picture elsewhere. In Japan, where 13 same-sex couples have filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the country’s rejection of same-sex marriage. And in India, female students at a college in Delhi have demanded an end to a Valentine’s Day ritual that sees male students hang condoms filled with water from a tree and pray to “curvaceous goddesses” in the hope that it will help them lose their virginity.
