BERLIN — A German zoo says a pair of gay male penguins are raising a chick from an egg abandoned by its parents.
Bremerhaven zoo veterinarian Joachim Schoene says the egg was placed in the male penguins’ nest after its parents rejected it in late April. The males incubated it for some 30 days before it hatched and have continued to care for it. The chick’s gender is not yet known.
Schoene said the male birds, named Z and Vielpunkt, are one of three same-sex pairs among the zoo’s 20 Humboldt penguins that have attempted to mate.
Homosexual behavior has been documented in many animal species.
The zoo said in a statement on its Web site Thursday that “sex and coupling in our world don’t always have something to do with reproduction.”
Long, long ago, I, like so many others, believed the bs that homosexuality does not occur in nature. After awhile, I said, well, it does occur in human culture, and always has.
And in another development that would send the legendary David Byron over-frothing:
April 17, 2009—Save the males? Too late for Mycocepurus smithii (pictured).
This leaf-cutter ant species is all female and thrives without sex of any kind—ever—according to a new study. The ants have evolved to reproduce only when queens clone themselves.
“They appear to have evolved a new mode of reproduction, and the genetic mechanisms have yet to be worked out,” said lead study author Anna Himler, a research associate at the University of Arizona.
In M. smithii the typical muscular reproductive organ of female ants has evolved into a “sort of a ghost of an organ at this point,” Himler added.
No male of the species has ever been found, and “even if a male were theoretically to appear somewhere, we’re not sure they could mate any
more,” she said.
Life will go on no matter what you think, eh?
June 17, 2009 at 3:57 pm |
New release:
Same-sex Behavior Seen In Nearly All Animals, Review Finds, featuring lesbian Laysan Albatross pics.
June 17, 2009 at 4:33 pm |
Feather has 2 mommies!
June 17, 2009 at 11:57 pm |
That diary raises a good point. My sis spent thousands of hours and thousands of dollars in the Big Brother/Big Sister program trying to help kids. I’ve spent a few myself, including trying to batter through the “health care” system trying to get a little girl taken care of – and it never would have happened if I hadn’t had a couple “special” phone numbers in my back pocket. But we are called all these names, vilified. Disgusting. Susan Smith et al “need a little help,” and my sis and I are monsters unfit to be around children?
June 5, 2009 at 4:47 am |
I am old enough to remember even animal behavior classes where if this ever came up it was explained away as displays of dominance, etc. A variety of explanations all of which fail to explain especially the birds, penguins and many others, who reject the opposite sex mates that zookeepers try to force on them for years, and immediately rejoice and set up house when reunited with their old partners, sometimes after several years seperation. The explanation is that that is simply the way they are, whether anyone understands it or not.
THe homophobes are left with the argument that a common occurrence in the natural world is not natural. When reality does not fit with their sky god’s notion of proper behavior or let’s face it, their aesthetic sensibilities, it must be reality that is out of step.
June 5, 2009 at 2:26 am |
Aphids would feaature prominently in Byron’s nightmare world too. Even the few males produced during the brief sexual cycle seems to have been dispensed with in quite a few species, which just go on with their parthenogenesis as they do all the rest of the year; most little baby girl aphids are already carrying their own little babies inside before they are even born. Come to think of it, that could be anyone’s nightmare.
It is curious, the “not in nature” business. Probably most people believe it, even though it was debunked long ago and now that people look with clearer eyes it is literally everywhere. Although sometimes, as in the case of discus fish, it is possible that the differences between the sexes are so obscure that they can’t even tell themselves. The public is so far out of touch with the reality of biology that any kind of nonsense is passed and not questioned, like all the imaginary quotes from the Bible and Shakespeare by people who have read neither.
I have a lesbian joke for you Miss D: What do you call the useless flap of skin at the end of the penis?
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The man! (Maybe a bit un-pc)