What Is The Gayest Animal?

PLUS: WE HAVE GAY ANIMAL MERCH FOR YOU!!!!

Before we get to the post, we have some BIG news.

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OK, on to the post.

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We like to tackle the important questions here at Discourse Blog. Would you have survived D-Day? Is Ratatouille a little better or way way way better than WALL-E? How do you flip someone off? How much money should the tooth fairy give kids? How much money would make accidentally pushing your hands through a glass door worth it? All of these issues, and many more, have been explored on this blog over the past four years.

Now, we turn to perhaps our most important question yet: what is the gayest animal?

We’re technically doing this as part of our landmark Gay Animal Month, but this question matters for all time. There are many gay animals, but there is only one gayest animal—one creature who can sit at the top of the gay animal pyramid.

So which animal is it? Scientists have been studying the gayness of animals for many decades now, so there are tons of contenders. But, after doing literally tens of minutes of research, I have figured out the answer to this question. Join me as I channel my inner David Attenborough (Gayvid Attenborough??) and let’s embark on this journey.

Part of the difficulty in figuring out the gayest animal is that most animals are not gay in the way that humans are. For instance, there are “homosexual interactions” between bed bugs, but that’s really a pheromone thing, not a basis for a float in the insect Pride parade. But some animals do stand out for their gayness. Let’s go through a few. And, as a reminder, I WILL answer this question at the end.

Black swans

Brian Ralphs

So apparently, fully a quarter of black swan parental units are male-male. Look at a group of black swans, and 25 percent of them have two dads. Pretty gay! Not only that, but one study showed that gay black swans make much better parents than straight ones. That’s right: Adam and Steve Swan are out here killing it on the nurturing front while Adam and Eve Swan are raising a bunch of no-good washouts. Incredible.

Bats

Is OMGFacts correct about this completely unsourced assertion? Not from what I can tell. But are bats very gay? 10000 percent. One Italian study says that at least 22 species of bats have been known to engage in same-sex behavior. Here is a hilariously detailed compendium from that study.

You read that correctly: Eptesicus serotinus AND Barbastella barbastellus are flying the rainbow flag. But I do not think that bats are the gayest animal. Let’s keep going.

Macaques

Kimon Berlin

From Imperial College London:

Observations of a wild colony of macaques over three years show same-sex sexual behaviour among males is widespread and may be beneficial.

[…]First author Jackson Clive, from the Georgina Mace Centre for the Living Planet at Imperial, said: “We found most males were behaviourally bisexual, and that variation in same-sex activity was heritable. This means that the behaviour can have an evolutionary underpinning; for example, we also found that males that mounted each other were also more likely to back each other up in conflicts – perhaps this could be one of many social benefits to same-sex sexual activity."

[…]The researchers recorded all social ‘mountings’ for the 236 males, both of males-on-males (same-sex behaviour, SSB) and males-on-females (different-sex behaviour, DSB). They found that male same-sex mounting was widespread: 72% of sample males engaged in same-sex mounting, in comparison with 46% for different-sex mounting.

It’s not just the guys though. Female macaques are also often bisexual, and even compete with male macaques for mates. The more you know!

Sheep

Andrew Hill

Here is a real headline from The Independent: “Farmers say expert's claim that one in twelve sheep is gay is 'nonsense.’”

Apparently a scientist calculated that eight percent of all sheep are gay about 20 years ago. And every couple of years since then, someone finds the research and is like “nooo please stop saying so many sheep are gay.” At one point, people also accused the scientist of doing the research to promote sheep eugenics?? Idk. Please don’t do anything to all the gay sheep.

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There are literally 1,500 different animals that have been observed being gay, so this list could go on forever. I am going to cut it short, though, because I think I have a winner.

I should say that I am kind of cheating here, because the rest of these entries have been about animal species, and this is about a single specific animal. But you know what? We own this blog so we get to make up the rules.

OK, here goes. Meet the world’s gayest animal.

Gianluigi Guercia/AFP via Getty Images

This is Jonathan, a Seychelles giant tortoise. Jonathan is currently 191 years old—the oldest living land animal on the planet. He lives on the island of St. Helena, and, even though he is blind and has no sense of smell, he is still going strong. Here’s Jonathan in a picture from 1882!!!

Guinness World Records

But here’s the relevant info: Jonathan has also been in a loving same-sex relationship for over three decades. From Reptiles Magazine in 2017 (there really is a periodical for everyone):

Jonathan, a 186-year-old giant tortoise has been trying to mate with another tortoise for the last 26 years until their keepers made the discovery that Frederica, Jonathan’s amor since 1991, is actually a Frederic. Frederica, er Frederic came to St. Helena island as a gift from the French Consul, as a mate to Jonathan, who arrived on St. Helena from the Seychelles in 1882.

The duo have been lovers ever since, with Jonathan visiting Frederica every Sunday morning for the proverbial romp in the hay, but to no avail. No babies were born of the union and it wasn’t until recently that their keepers discovered that Frederica was really Frederic. Frederica went into a treatment for a lesion on her shell and emerged as Frederic, as the veterinarian made a closer inspection and determined that she was indeed a he.

The two chelonians do everything together, such as eating, sleeping, and mating at prearranged times, Catherine Man, the resident veterinarian on the island, told The Sun.

Jonathan also hangs out with a female tortoise named Emma and a male tortoise named David. He’s all over the spectrum! But it would appear that Frederic is his main squeeze.

The oldest land animal has been in a committed gay union since the 1990s? I’m calling it: Jonathan the tortoise is the world’s gayest animal. Gavel sound.

What a journey!!!! See you next week…..