Not So Cute: Dolphin Gang-Rape

No Flipper, don't do it!

http://scienceray.com/biology/marine-biology/not-so-cute-dolphin-gang-rape-2/

We humans love to get close to these clever, cute and cuddly sea-creatures, but do you know how they treat their women in the world of dolphin debauchery? Do you really want to?
Ever since Flipper appeared on our screens we’ve known dolphins to be highly intelligent, social creatures with an advanced communication system and the tendency to help humans when in trouble. Many of us have seen them performing tricks in captivity or watched them on television displaying the same manoeuvres in the wild. Some of us (including myself) have even been lucky enough to swim with one. But how many of us are aware of their slightly less courteous behaviour?

Image via Wikipedia
Dolphins have a dark side, too…
Researchers have been studying the sexual behaviour of dolphins intensely for the last decade, after it was discovered they not only partake in homosexual activity (read more HERE), but also gang-rape and kidnap females who don’t reciprocate their sexual advances.



Image via Wikipedia
In order to coerce the reluctant females, males form groups of two or three – often remaining together in their search for sexual gratification for well over a decade. When they find a suitable female they literally force her to mate with one or more of the group, and have even been known to herd their unwilling consorts for months at a time, basically using them as their personal sex-slaves.
Although dolphins are not alone in the animal world of gang-rapists, research suggests they’ve the perfected the art to a degree unseen in any other species, and it seems they don’t limit their advances to their female partners, either: there are several reports claiming divers and swimmers have also been accosted.
Studies would suggest the behaviour is likely to be undertaken for reasons of pleasure as much as reproduction, as dolphins are known to enjoy sexual activity in cases when reproduction would be physically impossible.

 

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Now I want to hack a few dolphins up...Not the innocent ones though.

It seems that whenever a species develops more than a certain intelligence, they start doing sick things, like rape.

 

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Aww, that's so cute.

 

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I saw a show recently about a type of shark that does the whole gang rape thing. When the female is ready the mate, all the males just take turns at her. They wrap their jaws around the female's front to hold on and pump away. The female is kept mostly motionless during all this, as male after male tries to impregnate her, so she's basically drowning until all the males are finished with her.

 

Oh that's smart. Drowning the female does kind of mess with their chances of passing their DNA on.

 

So when they get caught in the fishing nets, it's really just well-deserved punishment. :bugeye:

 

For some reason I'm reminded of this.

 

Does a tendency to rape really have anything to do with intelligence though?

It might have something to do with the refinement and facility with which they rape--but as zoologists know, rape is quite endemic in the animal kingdom.

Well, that depends. If they drown 100% of the time, then they're not passing on their DNA and it's not adaptive behavior--but if it's only a fraction of the time, then I could see the behavior making sense in evolutionary terms. Notice that sharks aren't particularly known as intelligent creatures. Neither are ducks, which are also known to engage in vicious gang rape. Neither are a variety of birds.

Rape tends to be an adaptive behavior for animals. It's exploitative, but you see that throughout nature.

We are all survival machines, built by genes, to provide a vehicle for them to use to survive. All of the variety of life that we see are different ways that genes replicate themselves and keep themselves existing. Elephant genes replicate themselves by building elephants. That is how that set of genes makes a living. However, genes don't have to build bodies to be successful replicators. Building bodies is a long, roundabout, but tried and true method of replicating. However, there are also quicker and more direct ways to reproduce. Viruses. Hijacking and exploiting already existing organisms. The genes have much smaller bodies--just a simple protein coat and a proboscis-looking thing which it uses to insert RNA. Because the genes don't have to build bodies, they can be smaller, simpler, evolve faster and reproduce much faster.

Rape is kind of similar. It's faster, it doesn't involve courtship or any kind of parenting, or impressing the female. A competent serial rapist can do quite well at reproducing, which has enormous implications--the proliferation of others are likely to rape. It's exploitation, no doubt. But seeing the way nature works, it's obvious why rape is so prevalent: because it benefits the organisms (or, more accurately, the sum of that organism's genes) who have the "rape" genes, whether male or female.

So are ducks and sharks and cannibalizing female praying mantises evil? Ehh, they're animals. It doesn't really make sense to apply human ethics to their behavior in my opinion. Actually, I think it's quite silly.

 

Oops, aren't humans animals, too?

Or perhaps you're saying that humans have evolved to where they invent something called ethics, and make tons of laws against the human's natural animal instincts, and provide cops with guns and billy clubs to enforce those laws, and prisons to put the perpetrator into as punishment for violating any of those laws ......and that makes us civilized and somehow above the normal acts of the other animals?

Hmm, which group is the silliest?

Baron Max

 

Yes, that's true. Humans are animals. And yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. We created laws. Yup.

And that's exactly my point. It doesn't make sense to apply human ethics to non-humans.

You understand me like no one else!

 

don't forget infacide

 

why is it seen as rape and not just mating? Is the female dolphin traumatized afterwards and becomes antisocial? Is she mean to the offspring resulting from the 'rape'?

 

You can see the difference in the way they treat the females.

Also it should be noted that not all or even most dolphins rape. Same with primates. They are diverse creatures.

 

they who? The other males or the other females?

 

Since they are not willing, it's rape.

 

you're humanizing animals.

 

I thought it was cute when animals acted like humans?

 

no, its when they DRESS like humans.

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Yeah, but being all beautiful and made up nicely and wearing all those nice clothes, the rape was all the females' fault!

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Baron Max

 

I think the article is anthropomorphizing dolphin behavior. Some female spiders eat the males after "sex" for their protein. THAT'S not SM!! It's just the way that species has evolved to survive better.

I am sure dolphins do not "rape".