Amorous Squid Seeks Partner: Any Sex Will Do

[Occulus]

Posted by n2doc in Science:

Amorous Squid Seeks Partner: Any Sex Will Do
By JAMES GORMAN
Published: September 20, 2011


A five-and-a-half-inch deep-sea squid that lives a solitary life up to half a mile down in the dark waters of the Pacific Ocean is the latest addition to the hundreds of species that are known to engage in same-sex sex.

Over the years, scientists have added one creature after another to the list, making it clear that although nature may abhor a vacuum, it seems to be fine with just about everything else.

Male squid, for example, pay no attention to the sex of other squid. Understandably so. They live alone in the dark, males and females are hard to tell apart, and only occasionally do squids pass in the night. Far better to risk wasting a few million sperm than to miss out on a chance to reproduce.

This is only one among many sorts of same-sex sexual behavior. In some insect species, males engage in traumatic insemination, which is just what it sounds like, of other males and females alike. Among mammals, bottlenose dolphins and bonobos engage in lots of different kinds of sex. Male dolphins pursue sex with males and females equally, but the females show a preference for males. Bonobos pair off in all the combinations, often.

Article

Homosexuality, as a biological imperative.

:D

[LAGC]

1. That's why whenever anyone says gay sex is "unnatural", I'm like...

Take a look around you. Open your fucking eyes and observe nature, you knuckle-heads.

It's everywhere.

[napoleon_in_rags]

2. Oh, you tease...

Draw me in with that OP only to give me a science article. You should be ashamed! ;)

[Amimnoch]

5. ROFL, me too!

With DADT just lifted, I was thinking Squid as in Navy Sailor. I just had to see what this one was about being an ex-squid myself.

[closeupready]

3. See, to me, the conclusions here are disappointingly familiar - they anthorpomorphize squid, suggest

suggesting that the reason squid mate with males is because they thought they were females. As if researchers can read squids minds. And further, if you could read their minds, maybe we'd find squid males ENJOY mating with other hot male squid.

But at any rate, it's stupidity in the extreme to impute to cephalopods critical thinking about reproductive chances. :eyes:

[Evasporque]

4. No wonder Leviticus took calamari off the menu....nt