Posted by Darren Naish on November 1, 2008 
Blame Matt Wedel for kindly bringing my attention to this wonderful image; he was clearly inspired by the anuran porn from yesterday. Attempted interspecies matings are more common than people normally think – particularly in captivity of course – and, sad to say, I have detailed files (incidentally, I’m not totally sure that this is an attempted mating: hard to tell!). Am thinking of doing a themed post on the subject, god help me.
Seen the one with the moose on the bison sculpture?
Hey, thanks for the shoutout. Just doing what I can to, er, disseminate zoological knowledge.
(incidentally, I’m not totally sure that this is an attempted mating: hard to tell!)
Yeah, they could just be spooning.
In an interview with Nancy Grace the giraffe said, “It wasn’t what it looked like. I was just doing some squats. She came onto me!” Rumors that the giraffe later urinated on the apparently underage perissodactyl are so far unsubstantiated.
At least it was a California zoo; if that had gone down in Texas he’d be brisket by now.
Everyone knows that giraffes have to splay their forelimbs to drink. No one ever mentions that they squat down to get it on with donkeys. It’s a conspiracy of silence, I tells ya!
Any of you biomechanists got a perspective on this?
Darren, I am begining to suspect you are a very sick man 
I’m guessing that while sometimes the interspecies matings are mistaken identity, in others it just seems that identity didn’t matter. I can’t honestly believe that giraffe mistook a donkey for it’s own species. I suppose that like teenage boys the hormones kick in and any kind of thinking goes out the window.
It looks like the donkeys in the background are pretending that nothing’s going on. Don’t you just hate enablers?
I never thought a giraffe could stoop so low.
I’m not surprised.
A commonly known hazard in areas where elk and moose are common is the fact that a male in the mating season has two settings when encountering an object, pretty much….fight it, or f*ck it. My husband’s uncle lost his brand new rig to a moose. He was driving along and saw the moose standing in the middle of the road, and as he began to slow down, the moose charged the truck. They collided, the moose embedded its antlers through the radiator and grill into the engine block, and broke them off. It then shook its head and walked off into the woods.
Testosterone’s a dangerous thing.
I’m just glad the two species are too far apart to hybridize: a donkiraffe (gionkey?) would be too bizarre for the Universe to contain.
It’s called being hard up but it’s part of a basic principle. If an animal, or person for that matter, goes without instinctive behavior for long enough, it takes less and less to stimulate that behavior. As one friend put it, “Even the women in the office are starting to look good.” A lonely moose might try to mate with a cow. A pigeon deprived of a female to preen for will eventually perform for a spot on the wall. In the lonely depths of the ocean, male octopodes of different species will try to mate (or one will try to “rape” another. Someone in another thread mentioned a poor, deprived octopus having an affair with a string mop.
What DORKS!!! You are all debating on some poor giraffe that was just horny. Go wack off or something.
And what you expected when camel mates leopard?
(I’m surprised nobody mentioned that before 
)
BTW. I see you are all nice boys, no pervs at all, because nobody looked closely.
Look between giraffe’s buttocks and you see… yes, giraffe belly and front legs. The giraffe is a girl and is simply getting up some distance in front of the donkey.
Your giraffe looks like a female, Darren, so I think you may have a case of either assertive dominance, or “fake humping”, as such are used by chimps and some elephants. I think it may also referrence female homosexuality in the giraffe? Oh well. It doesn’t look like a male giraffe, at any rate, and I wonder if that influences the implications any.
Darren:
(incidentally, I’m not totally sure that this is an attempted mating: hard to tell!)
I don’t think it is; I’m not even sure that the giraffe and the donkey are actually making physical contact.
Firstly, there is the little question of the giraffe’s gender, as Jerzy and Jaime pointed out. Secondly, the angle at which those two animals are relative to each other seems less than optimal for a successful penetration.
And thirdly, the donkey seems a little too complacent about the situation. Forcing a donkey to take part in anything against its will is not easy. One reason why hinnies are rarer than mules is that female donkeys are usually reluctant to mate with male horses (much more reluctant than male donkeys are to mate with female horses). I can’t imagine donkeys being any more willing to be mounted by artiodactyls.
Where the hell are the giraffe’s front legs? It’s not on its knees and the legs are not splayed – they point straight into the ground. This looks like a mesh of two photos – some innocent browsing donkeys, and a giraffe with its legs in a hole.
Yes, I get more suspicious the more I look at it. I spent some time earlier studying the grass.
If ever an “I’m not totally sure” was going to save Darren from undue embarrassment, this has to be it.
It’s too late for me, I’m afraid.
What IS up with the front legs? Could they possibly be bent at the wrist? But I would think they’d bend backward at the wrist, and the limb farthest to the left, which I think has to be a forelimb, looks like it is bending forward where it hits the ground.
Damn. You guys and your stupid facts, getting in the way of my cross-continental donkey show. I’m outta here!
Unlike us Yanks, Brits thrive on embarrassment; it’s the basis for all their favorite (not to say best) comedy. So, watch for Darren to disclaim his disclaimer and accept embarrassment full-throatedly, if that can be done (and if it can, a Brit is the one to prove it).
Would a mating between a Yank and a Brit count as interspecific? E.g., Madonna and Guy? They haven’t seemed interfertile. Of course there’s Grace and the Duke, but there’s been considerable divergence since then.
If true, the attempt would be interesting.
But the front legs seem to me to clinch it as a fake.
I suggest that this was originally a photo of a giraffe mid-gallop, with its weight on its two forelegs and both hind legs well-raised off ground, back flexed and neck lowered as concomitants of being in motion. Not a static (or, well, let’s call it oscillatory) pose, as implied.
The giraffe’s forelegs have simply been cropped, to bring the hind feet down (seemingly) to ground level, and the resulting image superimposed on an innocuous image of browsing donkeys, for effect. Amusingly enough.
That’s my view!
This is fake.
1. lighting angle different.
2. giraffe’s leg doesn’t cast a shadow on the grass. Neither does the rest of giraffe, actually.
3. front legs cut off.
4. giraffe is clearly in the middle of a lateral gallop.
5. the green tint (attempted bounced light from the grass) on giraffe’s head is fake – change in hue too abrupt, overall it’s too pronounced (in comparison with the donkey), it’s most likely fake on the belly too. It’s inconsistent – no green tint on the neck or ears.
This one, however, is for real 8-0
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