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February 27, 2007

Study: Caged koalas prefer lesbian romps

Caged female koalas enjoy lesbian romps, rejecting male suitors and attempting to mate with each other, sometimes up to five at a time, according to researchers.

The cute, eucalyptus-eating wombat-like creatures seem to develop this tendency for gay orgies when they are in captivity. In the wild, they appear to remain heterosexual. Scientists monitoring the marsupials with digital cameras counted three gay interactions for every straight one.

"Some females rejected the advances of males that were in their enclosures, only to become willing participants in homosexual encounters immediately after," say the researchers.

On several occasions more than one pair of females shared the same pole, and multiple females mounted each other simultaneously. At least one multiple encounter involved five female koalas.

One theory put forward by the researchers is that the females do it to attract males; another is that it is simply hormonal or that it is a stress reliever.

Scientists from the University of Queensland studied 130 koalas in captivity and plan to publish their results in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

"Our aim was to determine the extent of differences in the homosexual and heterosexual behavior of female koalas and thereby to determine the purpose of female homosexual behavior in the koala," say the researchers. "Wild koalas brought into captivity clearly display homosexual behavior on a regular basis. A total of 15 heterosexual and 43 homosexual interactions were recorded in separate animals. Homosexual behavior was restricted to females only. Heterosexual encounters were typically twice as long as homosexual encounters." (Gay.com/U.K.)

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