Lesbian cow study udderly serious

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

The lesbian love life of domestic cattle has prompted a fact-finding mission to Malaysia's central highlands to study the world's last remaining herd of wild cattle.

Australia's only professor of animal welfare, Clive Phillips from the University of Queensland, is hoping a basic study of Malaysia's endangered Gaur cattle will help explain why domestic cows mount each other during fertile periods.

"With domestic cattle the cows show mounting homosexual behaviour when they are on heat and the wild cattle don't show that," Professor Phillips said.

He said factors such as stress, a selective domestication process which favoured outwardly sexual cows and the number of animals on heat in a small enclosure, could explain why domestic cows displayed this deviation in sexual behaviour.

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http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10645962%255E421,00.html

I think I scooped matcom on this one. :-)

[Catfight]

1. deviated behavior? I'm thinking that's just HOT!

[miss_kitty]

2. well why not?

i'm sure you all ran the 'gay penguins at the zoo in new york' story...
"deviation"-it's obvious straight people did this study, or self-loathing closeted types

[Sporadicus]

3. I Asked My Dad About This Behavior in Cattle

He theorized that the cows engaged in that behavior because there were no bulls in the herd. He didn't recall ever seeing that behavior in herds where a stud bull had been introduced. He also suspected an influence from artificial hormones, especially among dairy cattle.

He told another story about bulls. Some bulls had been gathered for castration, making steers out of them. He said one bull became 'feminized,' and the other bulls nearly killed him from repeated copulation. He didn't have any explanation for THAT one.

[fortyfeetunder]

4. So what?

Many animals have same-sex encounters. They look at it as "play" and not necessarily "procreation".