Wendell and Cass are two fourteen years old penguins living in the Aquarium on Coney Island, New York. As soon as they saw each other, they became a couple, and for about half of their life they remain a loving couple.
Angie Pelekedis, a spokeswoman for the Aquarium on Coney Island, said: "They're one of the most dedicated couples in the penguin enclosure."
Officials at the New York Aquarium finally realize that the "most dedicated" couple in the penguin enclosure is a pair of males, and can't get enough of each other. The couple has been together for the past eight years, and the two have sex with each other whenever they can, which is often.
They are the most affectionate and nice pair in all the aquarium, absolutely closed to any erotic temptation out of their couple. Normal straight couples (of penguins) are instead rather promiscuous and cheating is quite common and frequent amongst them.
Presumably penguins can tell the guys from the gals, but Aquarium officials apparently can't. For years they thought the pair was one of each. The truth didn't come out until aquarium staff carried out a blood test.
Penguin keeper Stephanie Mitchell explained: "I was only seeing one mate with the other, but then one of the other keepers saw it happen the other way round so we did a blood test that proved they were both male.
"Cass tends to be a rather aggressive bird. Wendell is very nervous; always has been. He's on edge all the time. They're currently in a dispute with another couple over their nest. It seems to be one of the most desirable places in the penguin enclosure."
Journalist and writer Andrew Sullivan wrote: "... with their monogamous relationship Wendell and Cass destroyed the thesis that homosexuality is a tendency against nature..."
Wendell and Cass would probably be more comfortable in a Greenwich Village one bedroom apartment than their current home at the New York Aquarium.
Squawk and Milou, male chinstrap penguins, are among several homosexual pairs at the Central Park Zoo in Manhattan. Homosexual behavior has been documented in some 450 animal species, one researcher says.
Roy and Silo, two chinstrap penguins at the Central Park Zoo in Manhattan, are completely devoted to each other. For nearly six years now, they have been inseparable. They exhibit what in penguin parlance is called "ecstatic behavior": that is, they entwine their necks, they vocalize to each other, they have sex. Silo and Roy are, to anthropomorphize a bit, gay penguins. When offered female companionship, they have adamantly refused it. And the females aren't interested in them, either.
At one time, the two seemed so desperate to incubate an egg together that they put a rock in their nest and sat on it, keeping it warm in the folds of their abdomens, said their chief keeper, Rob Gramzay. Finally, he gave them a fertile egg that needed care to hatch. Things went perfectly. Roy and Silo sat on it for the typical 34 days until a chick, Tango, was born. For the next two and a half months they raised Tango, keeping her warm and feeding her food from their beaks until she could go out into the world on her own. Mr. Gramzay is full of praise for them.
We didn't really need this "proof" to understand that being gay is not against nature, but many people still doesn't undertand this point... Unless nature itself is... against nature!
See also our article at page 41.
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