“Dead Duck Day” marks that time a scientist wnsed gay duck necrophilia | Ars Techni

Contents:

• HOW GAY DEAD DUCK SEX WAS DISVERED
• CAN ANIMALS REALLY BE GAY?
• DUCK | CAN ANIMALS BE GAY?
• CAN ANIMALS BE GAY? PENGUS, FLAMGOS AND WHAL THK SO
• CAN ANIMALS BE GAY?
• “DEAD DUCK DAY” MARKS THAT TIME A SCIENTIST WNSED GAY DUCK NECROPHILIA

HOW GAY DEAD DUCK SEX WAS DISVERED

Wh all the tert duck sex the days, a lecture by the scientist who disvered gay mallard necrophilia seems timely. In a TED Talk posted onle this month, Dutch blogist Ke Moeliker, a curator at the Natural History Mm Rotterdam, explas how he beme the first scientist to document homosexual necrophilia ducks.

And, look, both are of the male sex — homosexual necrophilia, '" Moeliker told the dience. In the 1960s, he was the wild observg the big horns and saw that they basilly live an entirely homosexual society until the age of six or seven. But the fdg don’t make some male squid gay or bi, lead thor Hendrik Hovg told the New York Tim.

An evolutnary advantage is harr to theorize for female Japane maqu, which don’t seem to e gay sex to form allianc, to get parentg help, as an exprsn of domance or submissn, or bee oppose sex partners are srce. “The liv of male bottlenose dolphs are characterized by extensive bisexualy, bed wh perds of exclive homosexualy, ” wr Canadian blogist Bce Bagemihl Blogil Exuberance: Animal Homosexualy and Natural Diversy.

CAN ANIMALS REALLY BE GAY?

Some male Humboldt pengus mata lifelong homosexual pair bonds, never matg wh a female. (They’re among the only animals one might get away wh llg gay, a term that scientists unrstandably avoid when discsg non-human animals. by: Gayle Guyardo.

DUCK | CAN ANIMALS BE GAY?

In the new YA tle Queer Ducks (and Other Animals), two-time Natnal Book Award falist and New York Tim btsellg thor Elt Schrefer jos Gayle Guyardo the host of the natnally syndite health and wellns show Bloom and prents a well-rearched exploratn of queer behavr the animal world—om albatross to bonobos to clownfish and sharp and wty prose—aid by humoro ics om artist Jul Zuckerberg—Schrefer science, history, anthropology, and soclogy to illtrate the diversy of sexual behavr the animal world. In the idyllic settg of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Tst Slimbridge, 325 hectar of Glouctershire wetland alive wh water vol and dragonfli and the world's largt llectn of swans, gee, and ducks, live a pair of gay flamgos named Carlos and Fernando.

CAN ANIMALS BE GAY? PENGUS, FLAMGOS AND WHAL THK SO

This week, the pair were given the rponsibily of raisg a newly hatched flamgo that has been rejected by s qutn of whether animals n be homosexual has been extensively explored. In 1999, Blogil Exuberance: Animal Homosexualy and Natural Diversy, the rult of 10 years of rearch by Bce Bagemihl, documented many s of homosexual behavur animals. Last year, an exhibn at the Universy of Oslo's Natural History Mm showed 51 exampl of animals displayg homosexual behavur - om female bonobos that b their genals together to male killer whal ridg the dorsal fs of other the avian world, nearly a quarter of black swan fai are parented by homosexual upl, the mal sometim matg wh a female simply to have a chick.

Homosexualy flamgos is also relatively mon. In the se of Carlos and Fernando, both assume the male rol durg the urtship rual - preeng, stttg and wavg their heads vigoroly om si to are other famo gay animal pairgs. Central Park zoo Manhattan had a famo pair of gay chstrap pengus named Roy and Silo, who were separable for more than six years.

Wh most speci, homosexual sex has been documented only sporadilly, and there appear to be few s of dividual animals who engage exclively. “This lony is lerally the largt proportn of — I don’t know what the rrect term is: ‘homosexual animals’?

CAN ANIMALS BE GAY?

” But the journal that published the paper, Blogy Letters, sent out a prs release a few days after the California Supreme Court legalized gay marriage. A Denver-based publitn for gay parents weled any and all new rears om “the extensive lbian albatross parent muny.

” A gay rights advote e-mailed Young, askg her to fly a rabow flag above each female-female nt, to intify them and show solidary. In 1999, Bagemihl published “Blogil Exuberance, ” a book that pulled together a lossal amount of prev piecemeal rearch and showed how blogists’ bias had margalized animal homosexualy for the last 150 years — sometim nocently enough, sometim an eptn of anthropomorphic disgt. ” Homosexual sex between ostrich was terpreted by one scientist as “a nuisance” that “go on and on.

Homosexualy is a tough se, bee appears to vlate that central te, that all of sexual behavr is about reproductn.

“DEAD DUCK DAY” MARKS THAT TIME A SCIENTIST WNSED GAY DUCK NECROPHILIA

Given this big umbrella of theory, the very existence of homosexual behavr animals n feel a ltle like imperable nonsense, somethg a rearcher uld spend years bangg his or her head agast the wall liberatg.

The difficulty of that challenge, more than any implic or explic homophobia, may be why past blogists skirted the THE LAST DECADE, however, Pl Vasey and others have begun velopg new hypoth based on actual, prolonged observatn of different animals, cipherg the ways given homosexual behavrs may have evolved and the evolutnary role they might play wh the ntext of dividual speci.

So far, the only real ncln this relatively small body of lerature seems to pot to, llectively, is a kd of flatg, meta-ncln: a sgle explanatn of homosexual behavr animals may not be possible, bee thkg of “homosexual behavr animals” as a sgle scientific subject might not make much sense.