"I found both incidents surprising, and a bit shocking to the sensibilities."
If necessary, you could desensitize yourself at search vids dot com.
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"They prevented her returning to the herd, etc."
HEY! I doubt that, very much! They are entitled to a trial and to due process. Were any physical constraints ever placed upon her person? Were inducements promised or implied? Perhaps she was being "punished" for being bad?
The following quote proves that dolphins are indistinguishable from teen-aged males.
"The erection in the male occurs with extreme rapidity. We have observed and timed it in our own tanks: it is something m the order of three seconds to completion, from the time the penis first appears in the slit. It can collapse almost as rapidly, and it looks almost as if it were being done in a voluntary fashion"
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Sexual Behavior
"The gonadal region of the female is located on the ventral posterior portion of the body, where the tail joins the abdominal cavity. This slit includes both the anal and the genital openings. To be entered by the penis of the male, it must be pressed open, as it were, by the entering penis. The female has two mammary slits, one on each side of the genital slit. The nipples obtrude from the slits during suckling by the baby dolphin. The mammary glands themselves are buried deep within the body and extend anteriorly from the slits. The female has a bicornuate uterus, and although reports of single births predominate in the literature, Aristotle refers to the births of twins. Aristotle apparently knew these animals extremely well_we should not really look askance at anything he has related until we have evidence to the contrary; we have been able to corroborate some of his behavioral data which had been discounted by scholars during intervening centuries.
"The testicles of the male are buried in the body, extending anteriorly from the genital slit on each side, and are amazingly large. We have recently dissected an animal in which the testicles were twelve inches long, about two inches in diameter, and cylindrical in shape. The penis of a fully developed male is approximately six inches long, and with eight inches maximum for length. The base, fore and aft, is about four to five inches, and the tip is only a couple of millimeters in diameter.
"When a female and a male dolphin are confined in a relatively small area in captivity, the courting behavior is rather violent. If they are isolated with a movable barrier between them, they will resolve all kinds of problems in order to be together, e.g., opening a gate to gain access to another pool and closing it behind them. As soon as they are together they start pursuit games. The initial phases of this behavior appear violent and can continue for the first 24 hours. If the female is not receptive, the male continues to chase her, exhibits erections, rubs against her, and tries to induce her to accept him. They bite one another, they scratch each other's bodies with their teeth. During the mating procedure; they will develop lesions practically everywhere on their bodies specifically on the flippers, on the back, on the flukes, on the peduncle, and around the head region.
"The erection in the male occurs with extreme rapidity. We have observed and timed it in our own tanks: it is something m the order of three seconds to completion, from the time the penis first appears in the slit. It can collapse almost as rapidly, and it looks almost as if it were being done in a voluntary fashion. It is very easy to condition a dolphin to have an erection. The stimulus, for example, can be a single visual signal. One trainer chose to raise his arm vertically as a signal, and the dolphin would turn over and erect his penis in response. If Elvar, one of our dolphins, is alone and a small ring, about a foot in diameter and an inch thick, is tossed into the water, he will have an erection, with his penis lift it off the bottom and tow it around the tank."
excerpts from: Lilly, John C. 1966. "Sexual Behavior of the Bottlenose Dolphin." Brain and Behavior, Volume III. The Brain and Gonadal Function. R. A. Gorski and R. E. Whalens, Editors. UCLA Forum on Medical Science, University of California Press, Los Angeles, California. P. 72-76.
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I found this quite interesting.
crystalinks.com
"On the west coast of Africa, bottlenose dolphins even work cooperatively with humans to ensure their food supply. The dolphins herd mullet to the shallows where native fishermen wait with gill nets to trap the fish. The fishermen allow the dolphins to eat their fill, then take the rest. The fishermen apparently can alert the dolphins to feeding time by slapping the water with sticks as a cue for food.
In southern Brazil, bottlenose dolphins have been the initiators of another fishing cooperative. A pod of dolphins alerts the men of Laguna to "feeding time" by stationing themselves offshore in a line. When a dolphin leaves the line, swims seaward, and returns, the men wait close to shore with their nets. When the dolphin reappears, comes to a full stop, and dives just out of net range, the fishermen closest to the dolphin cast their nets, even though the water is murky and they cannot see any fish. The cue given by the dolphins is reliable; few fishermen waste their time casting until instructed to do so by the dolphins' actions. After one or more men fill their nets, others come to take their place. If the dolphins move along the shore, the men will follow. The dolphins seem to take advantage of the confusion which results as the men cast their nets, feeding on their own from the remaining fish. Town records indicate that this partnership has lasted through several generations of both men and dolphins since 1847."
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Now, the question is: WILL dolphins have an afterlife? Will retarded people have an afterlife? Will Jack the Ripper have an afterlife? In our search for "God" and for ultimate dispensation do we include dolphins and ants? If not, then WHY NOT? |
