’Sexual depravity’ of penguins that Antarctic scientist dared not reveal | World news

The scandalous sexual depravity of penguins that Antarctic scientist dared not reveal: ►http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/09/sex-depravity-penguins-scott-antarctic

’Sexual depravity’ of penguins that Antarctic scientist dared not reveal
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/09/sex-depravity-penguins-scott-antarctic

It was the sight of a young male Adélie penguin attempting to have sex with a dead female that particularly unnerved George Murray Levick, a scientist with the 1910-13 Scott Antarctic Expedition. No such observation had ever been recorded before, as far as he knew, and Levick, a typical Edwardian Englishman, was horrified. Blizzards and freezing cold were one thing. Penguin perversion was another.

Worse was to come, however. Levick spent the Antarctic summer of 1911-12 observing the colony of Adélies at Cape Adare, making him the only scientist to this day to have studied an entire breeding cycle there. During that time, he witnessed males having sex with other males and also with dead females, including several that had died the previous year. He also saw them sexually coerce females and chicks and occasionally kill them.

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