Monkey business

Post-Valentine's Day quickies

Posted by biodiversivist (Guest Contributor) at 4:42 PM on 15 Feb 2008

Read more about: holiday | sex | wildlife

gorilla_copulation
Photo: Mongabay.com

Always a day late and a dollar short, I present to you, ah, two more love stories from nature. The first from Mongabay, which includes a hot photo of two mountain gorillas in the dorso-ventral (missionary) position. A true feminist of the gorilla world, this female has also pioneered the use of tools to measure the depth of puddles before walking into them. Given enough evolutionary time and no competition from upright walking primates, her progeny would probably discover fire and eventually use it to burn their bras.

You might want to take a cold shower before reading this next one from The New York Times, which is quite explicit.

What weighs less than two pounds and has a gnarly 11-inch-long Johnson?

Correct! The blue billed duck. To put this into perspective, a linear extrapolation by weight would give the T-Rex a penis over 13,000 feet long, thus demonstrating the limits of linear extrapolations, and why we have to get going on this global warming problem, because it ain't linear either. Hat tip to Caniscandida.

For story: Monkey business
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"Quest for Fire"

God knows what gospel those missionaries were spreading, who got the "missionary position" named after them. But note that "dorso-ventral" ("belly upon back"?; "back up into belly"?; "heated spoons"?) does not quite describe it.

Plus, there is this from the Mongabay article:

<<
"Researchers say that few primates mate in a face-to-face position, known technically as ventro-ventral copulation; most primate species copulate in what's known as the dorso-ventral position, with both animals facing in the same direction," explained a statement from WCS.
>>

In the original statement, the WCS went on to comment, "Whatever turns you on!" But that was struck, as being too relativistic. So was the explanatory remark, "doggy-style."

By the way, near the top of that long list of movies which I apparently am the only person in North America to have liked is "Quest for Fire" (Jean-Jacques Annaud, 1982). It is relevant to this discussion, because it suggests one credible situation in which ventro-ventral came to replace dorso-ventral.

Or whatever. This was a movie in which our ancestors could escape saber-toothed tigers by climbing a little tree, and could tame mammoths by holding forth a fistful of grass, while standing in a field of grass.

But still, I like it.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 12:40 AM on 16 Feb 2008

3 part TV series

http://www.drtatiana.com/airdates.shtml

"So far, the show has been deemed too risqué for the USA."

Look Canis and bio-d.

I bet if we all swarmed their ecoblog at Sundance Channel they would run it. Let's take a virtual journey over there. All together now.

http://www.sundancechannel.com/blogs/ecommunity_news

Very few comments, we could stage a takeover. Swarm swarm!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

by amazingdrx at 7:50 AM on 16 Feb 2008

whoops

Their blog does not appear to be working. Won't accept comments.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

by amazingdrx at 8:01 AM on 16 Feb 2008

Too risqu� ? Unreal

Mark your calenders. This sounds interesting :http://www.pbs.org/nova/apegenius

"At a research site in Fongoli, Senegal, a female chimpanzee breaksoff a branch, chews the end to make it sharp, then uses thisrudimentary spear to skewer a tasty bushbaby hiding inside a hollowtree. The footage represents an astonishing breakthrough for primateresearchers: It's the first time anyone has documented a chimpanzeewielding a carefully prepared, preplanned weapon."

Tuesday, February 19 at 8 p.m.Broadcast in High Definition where available. Check your local listings as dates and times may vary

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 9:37 AM on 16 Feb 2008

Speaking of Quest For Fire

Ha!!! I thought I was the only person who liked the film. It was much better than the awful series of caveman/woman films made starring Raquel Welch and others. The best part was the language.

patrick in Beijing

by bookerly at 4:55 PM on 16 Feb 2008

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