Lesbian Lizards

This is another for your wildlife rainbow collection: lesbian lizards. For a fun take on this from a lesbian site, have a look at "Leapin' Lesbian Lizards", at Wish You Were Queer, Girls

In the deepest darkest depths of Vietnam, two new herpetological (reptile and amphibian) species have been discovered. These creatures – dubbed ‘lesbian lizards’ and ‘psychedelic geckos’ – were found by expert Lee Grismer and his son, Jesse on a 2 week expedition to Southeast Asia. The lesbian lizards are asexual and arouse each other by mock mating. This in turn causes them to ovulate and lay eggs – and produce clones of themselves.

Or, for a more orthodox, formal news report, try Seattle Times - but the link, which was working fine this morning, is down right now. Perhaps it will be  up again later.

These are by no means the only lesbian  lizards, as this report from Time also shows:

So far biologists have identified 27 kinds of parthenogenetic lizards—all-female species that lay eggs to produce exact genetic copies of the mother. On field trips in Arizona and Colorado, a team of researchers headed by Psychobiologist David Crews found that four of these species engage in mock male-female sex. An active female mounts a passive one, curves the tail under the other's body, strokes the partner's back and neck, joins genital regions, and rides on top for one to five minutes. The active female lizard always has small undeveloped eggs, while the passive female has large pre-ovulatory eggs. But there are cyclic variations in behavior and egg size in these reptiles, and roles reverse; the passive female of one encounter can be the active partner of the next. Says Crews: "We are now trying to determine whether this malelike behavior facilitates reproductive function." Translation: the psychobiologist does not yet know why the females mock the male-female behavior of related two-sex species. The eggs hatch with or without the lesbian courtship.

(Read more)

Now, here's the thing: Lee Grismer's finds are recent, but the report in Time is from 1980 - thirty years ago! So how come people still don't get it that same sex interactions are not in any way "unnatural"?

File it alongside those Bisexual Snails, and those peace -loving bonobos.

Also see additional QTC posts:

The Wildlife Rainbow Queer Bonobos: Sex As Conflict Resolution Bisexual Snails Exclusive Heterosexuality Unnatural? Natural Law and Laysan's Albatross