Researchers: Captivity Brings Out the Lesbian in Koalas

They come from a land down under. Australian researchers monitoring the activity of Koalas in captivity discovered that female koalas will turn to their own sex for mating, rejecting their male suitors and frequently engaging in group sex.

Said the researchers: “Some females rejected the advances of males that were in their enclosures, only to become willing participants in homosexual encounters immediately after. 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…Our aim was to determine the extent of differences in the homosexual and heterosexual behaviour of female koalas and thereby to determine the purpose of female homosexual behaviour in the koala. Wild koalas brought into captivity clearly display homosexual behaviour on a regular basis. A total of 15 heterosexual and 43 homosexual interactions were recorded in separate animals. Homosexual behaviour was restricted to females only. Heterosexual encounters were typically twice as long as homosexual encounters.”