Which animals are gay

For instance, male dolphin calves often form temporary sexual partnerships, which scientists believe help to establish lifelong bonds.

Such sexual behavior has been documented only relatively recently. Zoologists have been accused of skirting round the subject for fear of stepping into a political minefield. Whether it's a good idea or not, it's hard not make comparisons between humans and other animals, especially primates.

The fact that homosexuality does, after all, exist in the natural world is bound to be used against people who insist such behavior is unnatural. In the U. Many on the religious right regard homosexuality as a sin. And only this month, President Bush vowed to continue his bid to ban gay marriages after the Senate blocked the proposal.

Already, cases of animal homosexuality have been cited in successful court cases brought against states like Texas, where gay sex was, until recently, illegal. Yet scientists say we should be wary of referring to animals when considering what's acceptable in human society.

For instance, infanticide, as practiced by lions and many other animals, isn't something people, gay or straight, generally approve of in humans. So how far can we go in using animals to help us understand human homosexuality? Robin Dunbar is a professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Liverpool, England. Dunbar says the bonobo's use of homosexual activity for social bonding is a possible example, adding, "One of the main arguments for human homosexual behavior is that it helps bond male groups together, particularly where a group of individuals are dependent on each other, as they might be in hunting or warfare.

For instance, the Spartans, in ancient Greece, encouraged homosexuality among their elite troops. Another suggestion is that homosexuality is a developmental phase people go through.

He said, "This is similar to the argument of play in young animals to get their brain and muscles to work effectively and together. Off the back of this, there's the possibility you can get individuals locked into this phase for the rest of their lives as a result of the social environment they grow up in.

But he adds that homosexuality doesn't necessarily have to have a function. It could be a spin-off or by-product of something else and in itself carries no evolutionary weight. He cites sexual gratification, which encourages procreation, as an example. Finally, both of these assumptions underlying previous research on SSB are reinforced by a heteronormative worldview under which SSB is seen as aberrant, perhaps explaining where these assumptions came from and why they were so rarely questioned.

In our paper, we argue for a subtle shift in perspective that offers new ways of understanding the diverse and endlessly fascinating world of animal sex, including SSB. We explicitly move away from viewing SSB as aberrant or as mutually exclusive from DSB, instead acknowledging that individuals and populations of animals can engage in a spectrum of sexual behaviors that include both DSB and SSB in a vast array of combinations.

This perspective leads us to propose the following alternative scenario: what if SSB has been around since animals began to engage in sexual behavior of any kind? In our hypothesis, the ancestral animal species mated indiscriminately with regard to sex, i. Indeed, indiscriminate mating can be more beneficial than it is costly. Mate recognition can require physiologically and cognitively costly adaptations, and being excessively discriminating in choosing mates can lead individuals to miss out on mating opportunities that lead to reproduction, a significant fitness cost.

And so, we hypothesize that present-day diversity in sexual behavior in animals stems from an ancestral background of indiscriminate mating among individuals of all sexes. In some branches of the animal tree of life, where SSB is actually quite costly, this behavior might be selected against. Scientists currently lack comprehensive knowledge of how common SSB is across species, largely because these behaviors have historically been regarded as unseemly or irrelevant and have only been recorded incidentally.

We predict that the systematic documentation of SSB across animal taxa, and the quantification of the costs and benefits of both SSB and DSB, would reveal that it is both more common and less costly than is currently widely assumed. In presenting our hypothesis of the ancestral origins for SSB in animals, we suggest nothing about conceptualizing human sexual behavior. It should never be the place of science to make normative arguments about people.

They swap the roles every two days. From Plenty:. Bonobos, one of our closest relatives, may be the most well-known homosexual animals. Killer whales, bottlenose dolphins, West Indian manatees, and giraffes are known to have all-male orgies. Among black-headed gulls, scientists estimate that one in ten pairs is comprised of two females.

Same-sex penguin couples have been known to have long relationships and raise chicks. Homosexuality is most widespread among animals with a complex herd life. Studies suggest that up to 8 percent of males in flocks of sheep prefer other males, even when fertile females are around.

However, this only occurs among domestic sheep. Studies have found that these homosexual sheep have a different brain structure than their heterosexual counterparts, and release less sex hormones.

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