Cupid is in the air -- and in the tank -- at the Georgia Aquarium.
While prom-going high schoolers dance to Rihanna and the Black Eyed Peas in the downtown facility's fancy ballrooms, the aquarium's beluga whales are enjoying their own courtship rituals.
Beethoven, the 1,687-pound male, is responding to signals from his paramour, the svelte, 981-pound Maris, because it's that time of the year.
"You will see more interest in the male toward the female, they will engage in pair swimming; they will touch each other with their pectoral fins; you will see gentle play with open mouths; some nipping; sometimes this ends up with a belly-to-belly present," said Eric Gaglione, curator of zoological operations at several galleries, including the belugas' Cold Water Quest.
Female belugas go into estrus once a year, usually during February, March and April, Gaglione said. If the female becomes pregnant, she will deliver a single offspring 14 to 15 months later.
This is a good thing for beluga conservation. There are six zoological facilities in North America that house belugas, which, with their creamy, white appearance and permanent smiles, are a popular draw. It is also a good learning experience for the Georgia Aquarium's two juvenile belugas, Grayson and Quinu.
Gaglione said mating behavior in belugas is partly innate and partly learned, and the youngsters can benefit from seeing how the adults pursue their relationship.
And the high school students watching from the other side of the glass?
"Oh, Lord, not during our prom! Oh, I’m going to lose my job!" said a worried Tonya Holmes, assistant principal at Woodland High School. It was Holmes' idea to stage the dance at the aquarium to commemorate a special year.
Woodland's prom, which takes place Saturday (the theme is "Atlantis 2011″), marks the Stockbridge school's fourth year in operation, so this senior class is the first to have spent all four years at Woodland.
As to whether the students might get ideas from the cetaceans, "they already have those ideas," Holmes said.
She was reassured by the news that beluga love is never a slow ride. "It happens very fast," Gaglione said. "Seconds."
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