Nerdy Science Blog

“Grrrrrrr~ Ain’t you horny?”  This is how male cheetah turns on female cheetah, in a language human beings like us won’t understand.

Although we can’t understand their seductive language, scientists have observed that specific bark from male cheetahs triggers female cheetahs’ reproductive system to ovulate.  Unlike their cat cousins, female cheetahs don’t have a regular reproductive cycle.  A team of bioacoustics experts noticed that male’s falter bark may boost the reproduction of cheetahs.  The barks raised the reproductive hormones estrogen and progesterone responsible for ovulation in the female cheetahs.

An ecologist at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, Fred Berkovitch said that this finding show that ‘telephone sex evolved before telephones’.  This old telephone sex technique can be exploited and increase the breeding of the rare endangered cats.

(news [you can click in to listen to the stutter barks])