Dr Ann Jones

Think about our two sexual reproduction types at a disco, male and female.

Half of the dance floor is a viable potential co-parent.

Not bad numbers.

But with four types, at least three quarters of those boogie monsters will be potential sugar mummers.

With 10,000 types, basically every mushroom will be suitable for your vegan sex buffet.

Multiple interchangeable mating types puts your odds of finding a suitable mate right up there.

And I get this in principle.

It does make our boring old dichotomy of egg and sperm bearers really pretty boring and labour intensive, right?

Though I suppose without our sex we wouldn't have discos.

question, and judging from the What the Duck inbox, I am not the only one.

If we, I mean every organism on earth, has an innate drive to reproduce, then why do we have same-sex sex?

Same-sex sexual activity happens across the animal kingdom.

There's a particularly famous pair of female albatross who have a long-term bond.

Perth River swans were observed in long-term gay partnerships with chicks.

Young bowerbirds and lyrebirdmouse practice wooing each other, though to be fair they do practice wooing sticks as well.

Dairy cows hump each other when the other one smells just right.

And studies in American rams found that they average about 8% male to male attraction.

What the females like is much harder to measure, so take that bit on notice.

Professor Jenny Graves is one of those people that you think, where did you possibly get made to come out like this?

She's not only been involved in groundbreaking genetic research for her entire professional life, she's written an operetta about creation, but from a science perspective.