Hi, Lokiare.
Welcome to EvC!
lokiare writes:
In herd animals and pack animals the males fight to see if they can become the dominant one and only the best becomes the dominant one. It isn't that they don't try to breed, its that the dominant one keeps them from breeding by interruption, injury, or by eating the offspring.
You're painting with a broad brush here. Not all herd animals and pack animals are identical, and not all of them are dominated by "alpha males." Some are dominated by females. Some have no sex-based dominance relationships at all. Some animal social structures are non-linear: i.e., A is dominant over B, B is dominant over C, and C is dominant over A. Social dominance alone does not explain why not all individuals reproduce.
lokiare writes:
Bees are only fertilized once and then produce clones for the rest of their life.
This is also not accurate. Bees do not reproduce by cloning: clones are genetically identical to their parents, which bees are not. Queen bees do only have 1 mating flight, by they usually mate with several males during that time. Bees (and all other hymnopterous insects) are haplodiploid: fertilized eggs develop into females, while unfertilized eggs develop into males.
lokiare writes:
You'll find that the rates of homosexuals in animals is pretty similar to the rates of homosexuals in humans (2%-6% depending on the study you look at).
If the rate is as low as 2%, I would say that it's entirely possible that natural selection
is acting against homosexuality.
-Blue Jay, Ph.D.*
*Yeah, it's real
Darwin loves you.
™ Version 4.2
(1)
