Gay bugs

Follow Laura Poppick on Twitter. To assess the range of evolutionary explanations for same-sex intercourse in the invertebrate world, a team of biologists from Tel Aviv University in Israel and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland examined roughly existing studies on the topic and compiled the first comprehensive review of homosexuality in invertebrates.

This anatomy blocker is not a problem for all species, since not all insect sex involves penetration. Male insects generally have gay sex by mistake: they can't tell the difference between a male and female until the act is done. And while the possibility that any sort of sexual encounter could induce pleasure in insects may seem unlikely, Scharf does not rule it out.

In other cases, males and females look so similar to one another that males cannot tell if a potential mate is a female until he mounts "her" and prepares for the act, Scharf said. The team focused on male-male interactions to simplify the analysis, and found that most of these encounters occurred as accidents.

The frequency of homosexual behavior in the insect world also remains unclear; however, more cases have been observed in the lab than in the field.

Why Insects Have Gay : Billions of insects are having gay sex 'accidentally' say scientists Research is suggesting insects who engage in homosexual acts have mistaken their partners gender

Since male insect anatomy is not designed to accept male genitals, improper penetration can cause bodily damage in aggressively competing mates. Whereas larger animals have developed more complicated homosexual motivations — like maintaining alliances, which has been found in certain primate and seagull species — insects seem to mistakenly partake in it in gay hasty attempt to secure mates.

Sometimes, such extreme indiscrimination leads to mating with inanimate objectsas has been observed in beetles trying to mount glass bottles. The glass bottle "looks like a huge female to them," Scharf said. Up to half of insect sex can involve two males but our study suggests it’s probably less design and more a case of mistaken identity.

This could indicate that the behavior occurs during stressful or isolating conditions, Scharf said, but more work is needed to confirm this idea. (Image credit: Reddogs | Shutterstock). [1] Couple of male mallard ducks in a nature reserve in Germany For these animals, there is documented evidence of homosexual behavior of one or more of the following kinds: sex, courtship, affection, pair.

In fact, one study bugs that certain female beetles mount each other to look larger and attract more male mates. Insect sex may seem fairly simple: fluttering dances, clasping abdomens, a quick mount on a forest floor. Even so, one study found that certain male insects have developed femalelike genitals to lower the risk of damage from homosexual penetration.

Male butterflies, moths and wasps, for example, use same-sex encounters to distract competitors from potential female mates. On the other hand, female-female homosexuality appears to have a separate set of motivations, and deserves a whole separate analysis, Scharf said.

The review was published earlier this month in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. Other studies do, however, bugs evidence of more intentional and malicious motivations behind homosexual insect sex. But a new review of homosexual insect encounters suggests the acts may not be that straightforward for the individuals involved.

The team next hopes to conduct experimental studies on a species of beetle to determine how homosexual behavior affects different aspects of the animal's life, and whether the behavior is linked to any other specific types of behaviors.

Roy and Silo, two Central Park Zoo male chinstrap penguins similar to those pictured, became internationally known when they successfully hatched and cared for an egg they were given. Researchers have widely examined homosexual behavior in mammals and birdsbut have addressed it less frequently in insects and spiders.

In general, jjba gay interactions seem more intentional than male-male interactions. In some cases, males carry around the scent of females they have just mated with, sending confusing signals to other perusing males.

Certain beetles gay even been found to use same-sex mounting as a way to spread sperm to other males that may then pass it along to the next female he mounts, though this mechanism does not appear to be very effective.