Gayest dinosaur to ever live: Go.

fezraptor:

dinosaur-discourse:

riseofthedruids:

gpsp-kai:

icestrykewyrm:

dinosaur-discourse:

The gayest dinosaur to ever live is the black swan (Cygnus altratus).  An estimated 25% of male black swans are homosexual or bisexual, forming pair bonds with other males and stealing the eggs of females to raise as their own.  This is the highest rate of homosexuality among any known dinosaur species; the mallard duck (Anas platyrhynchos) has a rate almost as high, with 19% of all males forming homosexual pair bonds.  (Unlike black swans, homosexual mallard ducks seem to be uninterested in raising young.)

The most famous gay dinosaurs are penguins (family Spheniscidae).  Numerous penguins in captivity have formed same-sex pair bonds, and have successfully hatched foster eggs and raised surrogate offspring.  Homosexual behavior among penguins has also been reported in the wild.

Homosexuality is very common in the animal kingdom – perhaps even more than we currently realize, thanks to the various stigmas that discourage its study.  Petter Bøckman, a scientist at the Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo, has said: “No species has been found in which homosexual behavior has not been shown to exist, with the exception of species that never have sex at all.”  As a result, it seems likely that most, if not all, dinosaur species engaged in homosexual activity of some variety or another.

(All images from Wikimedia Commons)

not dinosaurs dude

Yea I was about to say

birds are dinosaurs closest living relatives. close enough

Birds actually aren’t “dinosaurs’ closest living relatives”; they are dinosaurs.  The class Aves (all living and extinct birds) is a subset of the clade Maniraptora, the group of dinosaurs that contains dromaeosaurs and tyrannosaurs, among others.  There is nothing that separates dinosaurs from birds, apart from old-fashioned views of taxonomy and no-longer-relevant definitions of “bird”.

Exactly. In nearly every respect, Tyrannosaurus is more like a bird than a Triceratops. I would challenge anybody who disagrees to come up with a list of characteristics shared by all non-avian dinosaurs and lacked by birds.