Woof, arf, whatever: Sympathy for a bitch...

OR,

Honey, how 'bout an epidural?

Bjorn Carey expounds on what make a good hyena mommy and why she's always in a bad mood.

Alpha females give a hormone boost to their developing cubs, making them more aggressive when fighting for food and increasing their chances of survival...The dose of androgen that she received from her own alpha mother damages her ovaries, making it difficult to conceive.

It also causes female reproductive organs to grow. A lot. Her clitoris, which contains the birthing canal, protrudes 7 inches from her body.

"Imagine giving birth through a penis," said study co-author Kay Holekamp of Michigan State University. "It's really weird genitalia, but it seems to work. Although giving birth through a 'penis' isn't a trivial problem."

The clitoris' birth canal is only an inch in diameter, and the tissue often tears as a 2-pound cub squeezes through the narrow opening.

(Link)

Well you'd find it difficult to be all sunshine and buttercups too if you had to go through that.

posted by dorna! @ 12:05 am