Posts: General / Valentines Day Animal Photos

I started this thread based off of one photo on my google homepage that I loved. I ended up searching around for more because I am trying to get motivated to finish working on my references and I find this is best done through procrastination.





The photo is of lowland gorillas at the Bronx zoo. I love their facial expressions!! Unlike us socially monagmous humans, gorillas live by female defense polygyny. This type of mating system occurs when females live in social groups, often for protection, but not in a range that can be defended by the male. Males may instead follow the female groups and defend them. Gorillas are the largest of the living primates, however, they have the smallest testicle size of any primate because one male mates with multiple females he is defending -- no sperm competition, hence the small testicles





 a zebra huddle of idk, zebras are really strange creatures. Interestingly, zebras also live in a female defense polygynous system. In the wild female in social groups are nomadic and too large for one male to control. Instead males follow around the females and defend them and of course males fight for access to these female groups.





Lions live in a polgamous mating system, with a harm male structures, only one of a few males in a group of females will mate.  Lions do not mate at any specific time of year, and the females are polyestrous. This is the same with all other cats and means that the male lion's penis has spines which point backwards. Upon withdrawal of the penis, the spines rake the walls of the female's vagina, which may cause ovulation. A lioness may mate with more than one male when she is in heat during a mating bout, which could last several days, the couple copulates twenty to forty times a day and are likely to forgo eating.





Penguins are monogamous maters, but in many species pairs do not spend the winter together, and rather, only meet up at the rocekery or coloney where they last bred. Unlike many species, males endure a lot of costs associated with carrying for the young during the winter while females are away. Sometimes having to go 50 days with no food enduring bruttle icey winds. For males the cost of cukoldry, or a female cheating on them is high. It is estimated that around 10% of females cheat on their partners. I am not sure how many get caught, however.





Did you know that bald eagles are known to engage in a bizarre mating ritual where two eagles fly upwards, lock talons, and fall towards the earth while rotating, separating almost before they crash into the ground, if and only if they consummate their bird fuck. If they don't, they are willing to accept their death by hard ground. It's the ultimate race against the clock.