And they’re doing it in full view of onlookers, guilt free!
Homosexuality in the animal kingdom is nothing new. In fact, there is some research to suggest it’s been going on since animals first populated our planet (see link).
While we don’t have an exact reason why, we do know social bonding may be a major factor in same sex animal relations. That’s why we are delighted to hear about the dolphins!
According to a report in Newsweek, scientists observed big groups of dolphins engaging group hookups in the ocean – gay style!
A team from the Mandurah Dolphin Research Project in Western Australia observed the males spending quality time together after their mating season was over.
Per Newsweek:
“These dolphins, all but three of them juveniles, organized themselves in four subgroups in which they were observed engaging in socio-sexual behavior that included mounting and genital contact between individuals,” Krista Nicholson, of Murdoch University, told the Mandurah Mail.
Apparently, the behavior is rather typical in the bottle nose dolphin population.
“Apart from homosexual behavior, males, unlike females, in Shark Bay have also been recorded to perform synchronous displays,” she said. In Shark Bay, where male dolphins form lifelong alliances, socio-sexual interactions between males are more common than between females or between the sexes.”
According to Janet Mann, who has studied dolphins at Shark Bay for decades, says another possible reason is for males to practice mating.
In the book Homosexual Behaviour in Animals: An Evolutionary Perspective, she wrote: “Homosexual interactions in bottlenose dolphins…seem to serve multiple functions, although the exact fitness consequences, if any, are unknown.
“Our understanding of the social structure and relationships in a larger context would suggest that male-male social-sexual interactions are significant for the development of close bonds or alliance formation, negotiating dominance relations within and between eventual alliances, and practicing courtship behaviors for adulthood.”
h/t: Newsweek
