I love my gay giraffes
Okay, remember the sweet, lovely example of vertically gifted reproductive behavior I witnessed at the zoo a few weeks ago?
Sweet, lovely, unquestionably. Reproductive? Not so much. I realized when I was visiting them today that both of the giraffes are male.
::very dignified squee::
Which brings to mind the report that recently spread among the news outlets that same-sex coupling is very common among many animal species. I'm not sure why it was suddenly news, since it's not new information at all, but right. Animals engage in sexual and pairing behaviors for reasons other than conceiving babies, and they do it a lot.
I feel silly that I didn't notice the gender of the giraffes before, but I really don't know much about giraffes. Just to confirm - what if the external organs I would consider to be obvious identifiers among other cud-chewers turned out to be misleading in the case of giraffes? female hyenas have a penis-like structure, after all - I dug up some press releases the zoo published in 2006. At the time, Jigsaw, the older giraffe, had recently lost his father, but he couldn't be paired with a female companion because he carried a blood parasite that shouldn't be passed on to offspring. So they found a young male, Mesi, and brought him in from the San Diego Zoo. I don't know what happened to Jigsaw - either they renamed him or there's a new one now, but the current giraffes, Mesi and BJ, are both male.
(From Wikipedia:) "Another function of necking is sexual, in which two males caress and court each other, leading up to mounting and climax. Such interactions between males are more frequent than heterosexual coupling. In one study, up to 94% of observed mounting incidents took place between two males. The proportion of same sex activities varied between 30 and 75%, and at any given time one in twenty males were engaged in non-combative necking behaviour with another male."
::sniff:: Their love is so pure.
The ring-tailed lemurs were very playful in the "cool" of the morning. Playful like NINJAS.
Grackle & duck
Prairie dog shedding winter coat
Miniature donkey
Neck licking
This giraffe was also very interested in licking his friend's feet and legs today.
Bush dogs from South America
Sweet, lovely, unquestionably. Reproductive? Not so much. I realized when I was visiting them today that both of the giraffes are male.
::very dignified squee::
Which brings to mind the report that recently spread among the news outlets that same-sex coupling is very common among many animal species. I'm not sure why it was suddenly news, since it's not new information at all, but right. Animals engage in sexual and pairing behaviors for reasons other than conceiving babies, and they do it a lot.
I feel silly that I didn't notice the gender of the giraffes before, but I really don't know much about giraffes. Just to confirm - what if the external organs I would consider to be obvious identifiers among other cud-chewers turned out to be misleading in the case of giraffes? female hyenas have a penis-like structure, after all - I dug up some press releases the zoo published in 2006. At the time, Jigsaw, the older giraffe, had recently lost his father, but he couldn't be paired with a female companion because he carried a blood parasite that shouldn't be passed on to offspring. So they found a young male, Mesi, and brought him in from the San Diego Zoo. I don't know what happened to Jigsaw - either they renamed him or there's a new one now, but the current giraffes, Mesi and BJ, are both male.
(From Wikipedia:) "Another function of necking is sexual, in which two males caress and court each other, leading up to mounting and climax. Such interactions between males are more frequent than heterosexual coupling. In one study, up to 94% of observed mounting incidents took place between two males. The proportion of same sex activities varied between 30 and 75%, and at any given time one in twenty males were engaged in non-combative necking behaviour with another male."
::sniff:: Their love is so pure.
The ring-tailed lemurs were very playful in the "cool" of the morning. Playful like NINJAS.
Grackle & duck
Prairie dog shedding winter coat
Miniature donkey
Neck licking
This giraffe was also very interested in licking his friend's feet and legs today.
Bush dogs from South America