One of the newsletters I subscribe to is "News of the Weird," by Chuck Shepherd. He's on vacation, so the service is sending "best of" columns. Here's an item that gave me a laugh:


"* In 1996, Cambridge (England) University researcher Fiona
Hunter, who studied penguins' mating habits for five years,
reported that some females apparently allow male strangers to mate with them in exchange for a few nest-building stones, thus
providing what Hunter believes is the first observed animal
prostitution.  According to Dr. Hunter, all activity was done behind the backs of the females' regular mates, and in a few instances, after the sex act, johns gave the females additional stones as sort of a tip. [BBC News, 2-26-98]"

Males are the same no matter what the species, it seems.

--b.

Send this to L.E., maybe they'll give up on trying to stop the "Laws of Nature." eom

The guy's full of shit about that.  It is not unusual in nature for a male to present a female a "gift" prior to mating, especially for birds of various species.  In the bonobo chimps, our closest evolutionary cousins, and one of the only species besides humans to have "hidden estrous" as its mating cycle, it *is* the mating ritual. The male presents the female with some bananas and he gets laid.

This guy was either talking up his discovery for the rubes, or he's an amateur.

/Zin

Can't imagine what the sticks and stones are for, (maybe some primal S&M? (chuckle)), but the bone is obviously a treat.

I just think putting on a tuxedo everyday is a pain in the toosh.

That was great snowblind, laughed my ass off for almost ten minutes.

As I recall, the point in the cited research was that Penguins are generally monogamous, but when they are short of stones for nest-building, the female will hustle for the needed product, while still remaining with her mate. Kind of like many hobbyists.