Definition
Cross-species comparative analysis of same-sex sexual behavior.
Introduction
If sex is the engine that drives Darwinian evolution, why would a variety of animal taxa invest in nonconceptive sexual behaviors that do not directly contribute to reproduction? This section aims to address this evolutionary conundrum by focusing on the cross-species comparative analysis of homosexual behavior, in an attempt to shed further light upon the origins and evolution of human homosexuality.
Phylogeny of Homosexual Behavior
Despite its apparent lack of fitness benefits, same-sex sexual activity is broadly distributed across the animal kingdom. Descriptive reviews indicate that hundreds of species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, insects, spiders, mollusks, nematodes, and other invertebrates engage in extremely diverse homosexual behavioral patterns, including courtship displays, manual-genital, oral-genital, and...
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Leca, JB., Vasey, P.L. (2016). Comparative Evidence. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_47-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_47-1
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