Thursday, February 10, 2005
Dinner, Sex and Valentine's Day
The rituals of animal courtship can be exotic and wild. They also can resemble what humans do to seduce each other.
The male kangaroo gives the female a back rub before sex. The difference between him and man is he uses his feet. The difference between her and woman is she likes it with his feet.
With some species, mating looks like romance. With others, it's a quick fling and then back to solitary haunts or hanging with the girls or guys.
A female tiger will swish her tail to entice the male into a tryst. He'll nibble and bite her neck as things move along.
In the throes of sex, tigers make enough noise to be heard through the walls of a cheap hotel room.
The differences and similarities between the sexes and the species in the ritual of courtship can be instructive with the approach of Valentine's Day on Monday.
Failing that, they are at least entertaining.
In that spirit, Zoo Atlanta is hosting a dinner, "Love in the Zoo: The Science of Animal Courtship," Saturday night, that comes with a fairly stiff tab — $60 each for members, $69 each for nonmembers — but offers an exotic look at romance.
One of the after-dinner speakers at the event, James Ballance, the zoo's curator of birds and small animals, says relations between humans and animals are significantly different in one regard.
Human males and females keep company year-round.
But many non-herd animal species — elephants and tigers, for instance — associate only periodically and only for sex.
Ballance says the zoo's giant Aldabra tortoises — they weigh as much as 550 pounds — are a good example of divergent sexual appetites in a couple.
The male is an aggressive, raucous lover who roars during sex. The female seems as though she would rather be watching TV.
"When I hear that sound of the male Aldabra having sex in the spring, I always wonder what it is at first, and then I remember," he says. "It's amazing."
The Aldabra's courting ritual is to nudge and bump the shell of the female until she slows down or stops so he can mount her.
Asian small-clawed otters, says Ballance, are one of the few species that engage in sexual foreplay and frivolity even when the female isn't "in season."
Flamingos are nature's closest thing to an open marriage.
They form lifelong pair bonds, but they also fool around, even when they are expecting.
"While the female is sitting on the egg, the male will wonder back to the pond and fool around with another female," he says. "And when the male comes back to sit on the egg, she'll go down to the pond and do the same thing."
By JEFFRY SCOTT
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The full article with a few pictures is available HERE and includes some rather promiscuous shots of flamingos, but it does require registration. Bird doesn't like registration.
The male kangaroo gives the female a back rub before sex. The difference between him and man is he uses his feet. The difference between her and woman is she likes it with his feet.
With some species, mating looks like romance. With others, it's a quick fling and then back to solitary haunts or hanging with the girls or guys.
A female tiger will swish her tail to entice the male into a tryst. He'll nibble and bite her neck as things move along.
In the throes of sex, tigers make enough noise to be heard through the walls of a cheap hotel room.
The differences and similarities between the sexes and the species in the ritual of courtship can be instructive with the approach of Valentine's Day on Monday.
Failing that, they are at least entertaining.
In that spirit, Zoo Atlanta is hosting a dinner, "Love in the Zoo: The Science of Animal Courtship," Saturday night, that comes with a fairly stiff tab — $60 each for members, $69 each for nonmembers — but offers an exotic look at romance.
One of the after-dinner speakers at the event, James Ballance, the zoo's curator of birds and small animals, says relations between humans and animals are significantly different in one regard.
Human males and females keep company year-round.
But many non-herd animal species — elephants and tigers, for instance — associate only periodically and only for sex.
Ballance says the zoo's giant Aldabra tortoises — they weigh as much as 550 pounds — are a good example of divergent sexual appetites in a couple.
The male is an aggressive, raucous lover who roars during sex. The female seems as though she would rather be watching TV.
"When I hear that sound of the male Aldabra having sex in the spring, I always wonder what it is at first, and then I remember," he says. "It's amazing."
The Aldabra's courting ritual is to nudge and bump the shell of the female until she slows down or stops so he can mount her.
Asian small-clawed otters, says Ballance, are one of the few species that engage in sexual foreplay and frivolity even when the female isn't "in season."
Flamingos are nature's closest thing to an open marriage.
They form lifelong pair bonds, but they also fool around, even when they are expecting.
"While the female is sitting on the egg, the male will wonder back to the pond and fool around with another female," he says. "And when the male comes back to sit on the egg, she'll go down to the pond and do the same thing."
By JEFFRY SCOTT
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The full article with a few pictures is available HERE and includes some rather promiscuous shots of flamingos, but it does require registration. Bird doesn't like registration.
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