I know homosexual behavior is found in other animals, including our closet relative, the chimpanzee, I was wondering if there are animals that are exclusively homosexual. Since it seems that often what is considered ‘homosexual’ is more of a show of dominance.
I do recall something about gay penguins at a zoo raising a hatchling together or something.
So the question is in which animal species are nearly exclusively gay specimens found?
hehe, “closet relative.” 
in answer to the OP, there are whole books about it… basically you’re going to find examples of homosexuality and (more frequently) bisexuality wherever you find animals. I know of one example with lesbian swans at some park or zoo somewhere… Romeo and Juliet, they call them, only there’s no Romeo. google it yourself; I’m too lazy. 
Pretty much any bizarre behaviour (not that I’m implying homosexuality is bizarre) you can possibly imagine will be acted out in reality somewhere in nature.
I may be completely out of line here, but I’m hazarding a guess that in the background of this question, there’s a debate as to whether homosexuality is ‘normal’/‘natural’ - without wanting to push this thread in the direction of GD, I feel it’s worth mentioning that it’s almost impossible to resolve any such debate, as the person arguing that it is unnatural will very often argue that when it is observed in captive animals, it’s because of the pressure of captivity and even in wild animals, it’s caused by the interference of the observer.
Thus the debate becomes impossible, because one side is demanding to be shown where something was observed without being observed.
Exclusive homosexuality would be a bit of a barrier for evolution, wouldn’t you think? :dubious:
Dammit, I knew I replied too fast. Disregard that last post >_>
I’m not sure I understand. I can’t really imagine why being observed by humans would somehow encourage or discourage homosexual behavior in animals.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=parthenogenic+lizard&spell=1
There is a species of lizard that is exclusively female. What makes it different from other asexual lizard species is that although it conceives eggs asexually, it does not conceive well without foreplay from another female lizard. Apparently, the foreplay simulates the lizard to do the egg-laying deed.
If great care is taken, I’m sure it’s quite possible to observe natural behaviour in wild animals - in fact it seems quite ridiculous to suggest otherwise, yet people actually do suggest that the interference or even simple presence of a camera crew etc, can provoke wild animals to do things they wouldn’t normally do; usually because they’ve invested in a worldview wherein homosexuality must be an unnatural behaviour.
I’m having a bit of trouble coming up with a definitive cite to back up this assertion (so please feel free to ignore me), but I’ve definitely encountered this style of argument in debate.
Of course it is in essence an unfalsifiable assertion; much like arguing that a tree makes no noise when it falls unobserved in the forest.
Juliet and Juliet are in the Boston Public Garden.. It is fairly easy to induce homosexual behavior in some animals via hormones. I went to graduate school for the neuroscience of sexual differentiation. It is a pretty easy task to create male rats that exhibit homosexual behaviors by giving them hormones at certain critical stages of development.
I can’t find any reliable cites off-hand of exclusively homosexual behavior (besides the one-sex lizards) in either free or captive animals. There are plenty of examples, however, of bisexual animal behavior, enough that some scholars suggest that all creatures are naturally bisexual.
Animals don’t have societal taboos about sex. If it feels good, they do it. What determines a sexual partner in an animal is personal preference, just like in humans, but stripped of its moral/social connotation, which is incredibly powerful influence over behavior. Wheras human society has endowed sex with moral and emotional implications as well as controls over when and with whom sex is appropriate, animals just think having sex is fun, and it doesn’t matter much with whom they’re having that fun.
Our early socialization encourages us to choose exclusive sex partners, preferably of the opposite gender. In most people, natural impulses are suppressed to the point where they’re almost subliminal, and in some of us, heterosexuality has been so deeply ingrained as to seem almost unquestionably innate. In a sense, modern human sexuality is not “natural” , that is, completely unfettered by moral controls-- it is a carefully controlled, shaped and channeled force.
There’s got to be a Schoedinger’s Cats joke in there somewhere.
I’ve read about exclusively homosexual sheep. It can be quite a problem for farmers when thier expensive ram just isn’t interested in the lady sheep.