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Asked by bobsthe1 to Ed, Katie, Sam, Steve, Vera on 20 Jun 2011.
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Vera Weisbecker answered on 19 Jun 2011:
Yes they can be. There are lots of observations ranging from ducks to chimpanzees that many animals have intercourse with both genders. I’ve seen this myself in a group of Alpacas in Australia – the older males were happy to mate with the Alpaca girls but also liked the younger males.
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Steven Daly answered on 19 Jun 2011:
As Vera says, yes they can. I would be interested myself to know the reason behind this behaviour in animals if anyone knows.
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Katie Marriott answered on 19 Jun 2011:
A good answer from Vera there, as I didn’t know but I assumed yes! I agree with Steven, I would like to know why this is as bisexual behaviour is not beneficial to a species.
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Sam Tazzyman answered on 20 Jun 2011:
Bisexual and homosexual behaviour are frequently seen in animals. There is some debate as to why this is, and there are possibly different answers for different species. One possibility is that it helps with the social life of the animals, particularly in species like bonobos. Another possibility is that males reproduce more if they are focussed purely on getting as many matings as possible, rather than wasting time seeing whether what they are mating with is a receptive female. Indeed in some species males will mate with just about anything!
Comments
Zara commented on :
This has been a popular topic over in the ecology zone too! 🙂 Link: http://ias.im/57.1571