Birds and bees: Hiya, honey

As the Cole Porter classic goes, “Birds do it, bees do it. Even educated fleas do it.”

And, if they do it at the Los Angeles Zoo, general curator Michael Dee knows how.

A zoo biologist in his 38th year at the facility in Griffith Park, he occasionally gives a humor-studded talk, “Woo at the L.A. Zoo.”

He’ll deliver his slide show on attraction, courtship, romance and the mating steps that lead to when baby makes three, or four or more, on Sunday, as a prelude to Valentine’s Day. The presentation will raise money for the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn.’s animal adoption program, which provides support and naming opportunities for those lucky enough to be “adopted.” (You can’t take the adopted animals home.)

His topic is a popular subject at several zoos, including the famous one in the Bronx, and is, Dee says, a way to provide information about animals. Much of what he has to say isn’t exactly material for a family newspaper, which is why this event is limited to adults.

The congenial man with white hair, a beard and laugh lines around his eyes presents a more genteel account during a preview in an office cluttered with books, plants and a collection of natural-looking miniature animals by sculptor and taxidermist Louis Paul Jonas. Images of rhinoceroses fill a wall in framed, hand-colored plates, photos -- the first white one he saw in its natural habitat in South Africa, black rhinos head-butting -- and illustrations.

When it comes to mating, the first step, for some species, is getting attention, he explains. For example, “the frog that makes the biggest call with the throat pouch” is the luckiest in love.

Female chimpanzees attract males by a swollen anatomical feature described in that Sir Mix-A-Lot song “Baby Got Back,” which doesn’t refer to a spine. “It’s like anything else,” Dee says, “like putting on lipstick.”

Want a mate for life? You’ll never warble “Bye-bye Birdie, I’m gonna miss you so” if you belong to the species of the zoo’s newest couple, Australian black swans.

They court unlike most of the zoo’s occupants, Dee says. “The male does a lot of head-bobbing, and finally the female responds in kind. When they become a couple, they mate for life, and the male swan is tough as nails when it defends the female.”

Cranes, doves, birds of paradise and bower birds also stay together until death do them part. But monogamy is more the exception than the rule in the wild and in captivity.

“More animals are polygamous because they live in a social setting” and are motivated by survival of the fittest, Dee says. Fighting establishes dominance, especially when males greatly outnumber females.

* Bull elephants “joust each other,” he says, to determine who will get all of the females.

* Deer -- bucks, of course -- crack antlers.

* Rabbits -- future dads -- hop up on hind legs and box.

* Male giraffes butt heads.

* Bighorn sheep, males again, “routinely will knock each other around, not to try to kill anybody but to show who’s boss,” Dee adds. The reward: six or seven ewes.

They aren’t the only ones with a competitive instinct. Cheetahs “need that competition. Several males will vie for affection, and she picks the one that is the strongest,” Dee says. Without that ritual, they refuse to mate.

Loyalty is rarely a given in the animal world.

Cats, and Dee’s not talking here about those you call “Smokey” or “Kitty” at home, “will breed with any male. Their babies have multiple fathers.”

Want a mate who is willing to die for you? The male saiga antelope, which is found in central Russia, Dee says, “will define his territory and guard it at all costs.” During spring and summer, “while the other young males and females are eating,” he doesn’t because he’s preoccupied with breeding. Running up and down protecting his harem, he expends a great deal of energy. When winter comes, he has no fat stored and can’t survive.

Dee ends his slide show with a few details about one of his favorite animals: the rhino. He passes around part of a rhino horn, denying that it is an aphrodisiac, as some believe. (Rhinos could be considered inspirational in this area, however: They take their time during mating, Dee notes.) This piece, which weighs a pound, is not contraband. “The horn was growing backward, curving into the animal’s skull” because it had been damaged, he says. “We cut it right above the damaged part, like trimming a fingernail,” he explains, so it would grow normally.

His “Woo at the L.A. Zoo” talk, which he has been doing on and off for a decade, represents a minute fraction of his expertise. His specialty is (no surprise) rhinoceroses, and tapirs, large animals with a prolonged snout, related to rhinos and horses.

He preferred reptiles when he joined the zoo in 1967. Because there were no openings in the Reptile House, Dee “got started picking up after the elephants.” He worked on the animal care staff and moved up to curator of mammals. He has been general curator for six years.

In charge of the animal collection and the animal care staff at the zoo, he also leads an international effort to increase the chances of survival of Asian rhinos. During television appearances, he discusses when animals attack and other topics.

As for his own courtship and mating rituals, Dee laughs and says: “I’ve been married three times.”