On this day of freedom, let's talk about how bald eagles are queer!
It starts with a female eagle named Hope and a male named Valor I. The two settled down to neat together, however Valor I wasn't a great dad. He did show up to incubate the eggs and basically never came around.
In comes another male, Valor II. He immediately did what a good eagle dad is supposed to, incubate, maintain the best, all that. This lead to him becoming Hope's new mate.
Here's where it gets interesting, Valor I didn't seem to mind and actually stuck around! Eventually Hope started mating with both of them, and Valor I even learned to be a good dad!
Unfortunately in 2017 Hope was killed by intruding eagles, but! The two male's actually stuck together and successfully raised their chicks!
Soon enough a new female named Starr came along and joined the two, and now she mates with both males every season!
This arrangement allows for the eagles to have a much more successful rate of raising chicks and fighting off other predators!
This particular story isn't the only one! Bald eagles have been seen in multiple arrangements including two females and one male!
Henry James Burrell (1873-1945) ~ Young Platypus, ca. 1914. Glass negative | src Australian museum
[...] most famous for being the first person to successfully keep platypuses in captivity. To do this he invented the ‘platypusary’, a storage tank which enabled him to both study and exhibit live platypuses. The platypusary was used [...]
For today's pride month post, let's talk about white tailed deer!
Now these guys actually surprised me, did you know up to 15% of white tailed deer are intersex? There are deer that are born with both sex organs, females that grow antlers, and even what's known as Velvethorns.
A normal buck will shed it's velvet from late August to early September, but velvet horns never she'd their velvet. As a buck's testosterone level rises as they get ready for mating season their antler's harden and their velvet is shed.
So why doesn't this happen to velvet horns?
Depending on the reason, be it birth defect, or some sort of truama to the testicles, these guys just never get that testosterone boost. It also leads to them having an appearance more similar to a doe than a buck.
They tend to shy away from male or female groups, instead forming herds with other velvet horns, they've even been known to adopt orphaned fawns!
Even the hunting community knows about these deer, some states actually having them tag the deer as "antlered" or "antlerless" to avoid any confusion!