Fun facts about giraffe sex to keep you occupied while you wait for that giraffe baby

A giraffe in Harpursville, NY is about to give birth. Or rather, she’s been “about” to give birth for several days now. As of the writing of this article, there are 74,000 people watching a live stream of April the giraffe just slowly wandering around her pen, flicking her tail, and stretching. It’s pretty boring. So instead of just sitting there watching a video feed, take this time to learn a little something about April and what she’s been through for the 15 freakin’ months that she’s been pregnant



We’ll start at the beginning of this beautiful process: conception. Giraffes don’t have a set mating season. Instead they have an estrous cycle, which is a lot like the human menstrual cycle (but with less blood and slightly different hormones). The male giraffes don’t just mate with the ladies all the time, so they generally try to find a way to determine is the lady is fertile. How, do you ask? Pee. The answer is always pee.

The boy giraffe lopes on over to the girl giraffe and rubs against her in what can only be described as gentle whacking. Then when the lady starts a-peein’, the gent leans down and tastes it. If he tastes hormones that indicate she’s in heat, the beautiful mating ritual begins. Once the male knows he has a fertile female in front of him, he sort of follows her around trying to mount her for a couple of days, often while sporting a frankly alarming erection, and sometimes licking her hind legs. His mate just keeps walking away from him every time he tries to do this (and can you blame her?). At some point though, she stands still long enough for the deed to be done. Once the male rears up on his hind legs and mounts her successfully, he ejaculated in mere seconds. Sometimes he can go again (and sometimes again after that) each time only for a few seconds—as his partner continually walks away from him. It's kind of a weird dynamic, to say the least.

READ MORE AT: https://www.popsci.com/giraffe-reproduction-birth-live-stream#page-4

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