The London Zoo Celebrat Gay Matg, Gay Animals, Gay Pengus & Gay Parents |

ARE PENGUS GAY? NO, THEY’RE JT LONELY

Some homosexually displayg mal eventually paired wh femal, but such mal were...

In this ntext, ’s particularly serendipo that the Humboldt pengu is named after the Humboldt ocean current (off the wt ast of South Ameri), which self is named after the Pssian naturalist Alexanr von Humboldt, who himself the evince dit to have been homosexual (or possibly bisexual). Stori of homosexual behavr among pengus are well-documented and well-loved. For a while, Roy and Silo, a pair of male Chstrap pengus New York Zoo, were the world’s most famo gay uple, buildg a nt together and even hatchg and rearg abandoned chick named Tango.

Stephen Dobson, one of the thors of the study published the journal Ethology, said that when he observed the lony over time he found that all the “gay” pengus chose a heterosexual partner eventually and that female pairs would also “spl up” to raise an egg wh a male partner. Some homosexually displayg mal eventually paired wh femal, but such mal were signifintly slower heterosexual pairg than mal that did not display homosexually.

WHAT’S WH ALL THE GAY PENGUS?

Fally, the equency of homosexually displayg pairs was signifintly lower than expected om random assortment of displayg birds, for both mal and femal. A populatn sex‐rat bias favor of mal and high ncentratn of male sex hormon may help to expla non‐reproductive homosexually displayg pairs. In the Netherlands, a gay Ain pengu uple recently stole an egg om a lbian pengu uple.

That means ’s difficult to tell male and female pengus apart and even more difficult to intify any wild matg pairs as homosexual. Elisabetta Palagi, EdorAbstractHumans are unique among primat for not only engagg same-sex sexual acts, but also formg homosexual pair bonds. To shed light on the evolutnary origs of homosexualy, data on the occurrence and ntexts of same-sex behavr om nonhuman primat may be of particular signifince.

Homosexual behavr volvg femal is poorly rearched most primate taxa, exceptns beg Japane maqu, rh maqu, Hanuman langurs and bonobos. We prent data on homosexual behavr female mounta gorillas the Vinga Volno (Rwanda) and tt four functnal hypoth, namely renciliatn, affiliatn, domance exprsn and sexual aroal.

FOUR GAY PENGUS UPLE UP AT LONDON AQUARIUM FOR MATG SEASON

Homosexual teractns between femal volved both ventro-dorsal and ventro-ventral pulatns acpanied by volizatns and urtship displays.

An adaptive functn of female homosexual behavr is not readily apparent, and we tentatively nclu (until a more rigoro tt be available) that may simply be related to sexual gratifitn or that is an evolutnary by-product of an adaptatn.

IntroductnSame-sex or homosexual behavr–both between mal and femal–has been observed many mammalian speci [1, 2]. Others have also emphasized the non-functnaly of this behavr, argug that might be a functnls by-product of evolutn or a pathology (reviewed [3], see also [4]) a phylogeic perspective, tracg back the evolutnary occurrence of homosexual behavr might ntribute to an unrstandg of such behavr humans, which are unique among primat for not only engagg homosexual acts, but also formg homosexual pair bonds [5].