Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity

The beginning of the modern study of animal homosexuality was heralded by a number of early descriptions of same-sex behavior in insects (e.g., by Alexandre Laboulmene in 1859 and Henri Gadeau de Kerville in 1896), small mammals (e.g., by R. Rollinat and E. Trouessart on Bats in 1895), and birds (e.g., by J. Whitaker on Swans in 1885 and Edward Selous on Ruffs in 1906), while the German scientist Ferdinand Karsch offered, in the year 1900, one of the first general surveys of the phenomenon. ⁴ Since then, the scientific study of animal homosexuality has expanded enormously to include a wide variety of investigations, reported in close to 600 scientific articles, monographs, dissertations, technical reports, and other publications in over ten different languages. These range from field observations of animals that only anecdotally mention homosexual behavior, to more extensive descriptions of homosexuality in a wide range of species studied in the wild, to observations of captive animals (including at many zoos and aquariums throughout the world), to experiments on laboratory animals, to more recent studies devoted to examining all aspects of homosexual behavior in a particular species (often in the wild), to more comprehensive general surveys of the phenomenon. Some reports have received wide attention, such as the discovery of female pairing in various Gull and Tern species that initiated a flurry of scientific and media interest in the late seventies and early eighties. On the other hand, many reports of animal homosexuality have gone unnoticed even by other zoologists, languishing in small specialty or regional journals such as The Bombay Journal of Natural History, Ornis Fennica (the journal of the Finnish Ornithological Society), Revista Brasileira de Entomologia (the Brazilian Journal of Entomology), or the Newsletter of the Papua New Guinea Bird Society. In a few cases, well-known scientists have published descriptions of animal homosexuality, including Desmond Morris on Orang-utans, Zebra Finches, and Sticklebacks, Dian Fossey on Gorillas, and Konrad Lorenz on Greylag Geese, Ravens, and Jackdaws. ⁵ Aristocracy has even been involved: in addition to Count Buffon’s observations in the eighteenth century, in the 1930s the Marquess of Tavistock in England coauthored a report on bird behavior with scientist G. C. Low that included descriptions of same-sex pairs in captive waterfowl. Like Desmond Morris’s account of same-sex activity in Orang-utans quoted above, however, his report was somewhat less than “objective,” containing as it did a statement about how “ludicrous” were a pair of male Mute Swans that remained together and built a nest each year.⁶

The earliest photographic record of animal homosexuality: a pair of male Mute Swans photographed in 1923 on the nest they built together in Scotland. A female pair in the same species was first observed in 1885.