Saturday, February 03, 2007

Something (else) in the water?

If you've ever turned lovingly to your partner and discussed the virtues of a seahorse in relation to yourself ie monogamous (not necessarily that it's a species where the male becomes pregnant and carries the eggs), it's time to find a new metaphor (or would that be similie?). They have been found out!
SEX SHOCK: SEAHORSES EXPOSED screamed the headlines yesterday. The gist of the story - seahorses, long thought of as monogamous, are in fact shameless sex-obsessed bisexuals - and none more so than those in Australian waters. A study has found that, unlike human rules of attraction, seahorses with the biggest bellies attract most partners, and of the 3168 sexual couplings recorded during the study, 37per cent were same-sex liaisons.
So it seems that the seahorses' fabled monogamy was just that ... fabled!

But wait ... of the three species studied, 5 couples (of the 11) of the British spiny seahorse were faithful to one partner. (When did faithful and monogamy come to mean the same thing?)

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