Why male giraffes drink potential mates’ pee

A feminine giraffe has an ideal Valentine’s Day present for potential mates: urine.

Distinctive anatomy helps male giraffes get a taste for whether a female is ready to mate, animal behaviorists Lynette and Benjamin Hart report January 19 in Animals. A pheromone-detecting organ in giraffes has a stronger connection to the mouth than the nostril, the researchers discovered. That’s why males scope out which females to mate with by sticking their tongues in a urine stream.  

Animals similar to male gazelles will lick contemporary urine on the bottom to trace if females are able to mate. However giraffes’ lengthy necks and heavy heads make bending over to research urine on the bottom an unstable and weak place, says Lynette Hart, of the College of California, Davis.

The researchers noticed giraffes (Giraffa giraffa angolensis) in Etosha Nationwide Park in Namibia in 1994, 2002 and 2004. Bull giraffes nudged or kicked the feminine to ask her to pee. If she was a prepared participant, she urinated for a number of seconds, whereas the male took a sip. Then the male curled his lip and inhaled together with his mouth, a conduct referred to as a flehmen response, to tug the feminine’s scent into two openings on the roof of the mouth. From the mouth, the scent travels to the vomeronasal organ, or VNO, which detects pheromones.

The Harts say they by no means noticed a giraffe examine urine on the bottom.

In contrast to many different mammals, giraffes have a stronger oral connection — by way of a duct — to the VNO, than a nasal one, examinations of preserved giraffe specimens confirmed. One doable clarification for the distinction might be {that a} VNO-nose hyperlink helps animals that breed at particular instances of the yr detect seasonal crops, says Benjamin Hart, a veterinarian additionally on the College of California, Davis. However giraffes can mate any time of yr, so the nasal connection might not matter as a lot.