A provocative new book about gay animals is challenging the belief that homosexuality is an aberration of nature.

“Biological Exuberance,” a ground-breaking review of homosexuality in the wild kingdom, documents hundreds of cases of mammals and birds enthusiastically engaging in sex and long-term relationships with members of the same sex.

The list of homosexual creatures, according to author and biologist Bruce Bagemihl, would fill Noah’s Ark: apes and monkeys, dolphins and whales, giraffes, zebras, warthogs and woodpeckers.

Lesbian gulls mated for life and raised chicks together. Male manatees splashed around in group orgies.

In all, the 751 page book – which took 10 years to research and write – notes 471 species, including fish and insects, that exhibit varying types of homosexual behavior.

It challenges the notion that homosexuality is unnatural.

Like human homosexual behavior, animal homosexual behavior takes many different forms.

In addition to sex, there are unique mating and courtship rituals, gestures of loving affection, long-term pair-bonding and even gay parenting.

Two gay griffin vultures at the Jerusalem Zoo, Doshik and Yehuda, are now raising their second “foster” chick, which they incubated by taking turns on the nest just like a heterosexual couple.

Throughout much of recorded history, the charge of “unnaturalness” — including the claim that homosexuality does not occur in animals — has been used to justify prejudice against gay people.

This book is valuable because it proves that homosexuality is indeed a natural and normal part of life.

Alan L. Light

Resident

Iowa City