Asexuality in non-human animals article

[A-Scale]

I am not entirely sure if THIS is the right place to post this, but I do believe so because it is in regards to sharing knowledge? If it's not in the right category I can gladly move it or something can be done!

I found this great article on asexuality in other animals, basically, and I think it's worth checking out! Also adds weight to asexuality not being due to hormone deficiency, at least in the majority of cases with non-human animals.
http://www.kristinagupta.com/2014/01/09/asexuality-in-non-human-animals/

[Chimeric]

And these are just the mammals.  Asexuality plays a big, big role in helping insects dominate their ecological niches the way that they do. Without members of the colony that focus on things other than reproducing, they wouldn't be able to support the sheer numbers of individuals that live in each colony. I like to think that's a huge contributing factor for their success (even though we have a tendency to view insects as really simple beings, they have dominated this planet in a big way for a long, long time - and they will persist even after we've wiped out our own species ).

 

Thanks for sharing! I love reading stuff like this. =D

[Guest]

Here's another one if anyone is interested (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2684522/)

 

 It discusses sexual preferences in rams. They discovered that certain rams (no matter how many sex hormones they get pumped with) have no interest in engaging in sex with either ewes or other rams. I'm not sure if this is the same one or if it's a different article, but researchers conducted animal tests to find if sexual orientation was 'formed' in the womb based on different hormones the animals were exposed to. They did find correlation between certain hormones (and the lack of some hormones) and whether the ram turned out to be hetero, homo, bi, or asexual. This to me is all the evidence we need to show that a lot of people (who are also animals) can be *born* asexual (or gay), as opposed to environmental factors outside the womb creating that non-heterosexuality.

 

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, Chimeric said:

Thanks for sharing! I love reading stuff like this. =D

Also I haven't forgotten your PM, my kids are home sick and so I've spent what little AVEN time I have ranting instead of responding to you, but I haven't forgotten about you, I'm enjoying our convo

[Chimeric]

38 minutes ago, FictoVore. said:

Also I haven't forgotten your PM, my kids are home sick and so I've spent what little AVEN time I have ranting instead of responding to you, but I haven't forgotten about you, I'm enjoying our convo

No worries! Take your time. =)

[A-Scale]

Ooooh, the ram one is a good in-depth look at those experiments. And this:

4 hours ago, Chimeric said:

Asexuality plays a big, big role in helping insects dominate their ecological niches the way that they do.

Is also an incredibly good point! I think a lot of people tend to assume that they're all mindless drones, but there's a lot of social dynamic in insect groups.

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

One of my crofter friends had a ram like that @FictoVore., he stood in the field wondering what he was there for at breeding time! 

In other animal societies like ants and mole rats, there is a queen who dies all the breeding and the drones are there just to help her further her genes. does that make the drones asexual? Probably, as they show no interest in deposing their queen and taking her place.