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Same-sex sexual behavior has been documented across many animal groups, but the published record is far from a complete account of what animals do. A 2024 survey of researchers found a substantial gap between observing this behavior and systematically recording or publishing it. That makes a simple count—or a ranking of the “queerest” species—misleading.
Here, “queer” is a useful prompt to question the assumption that animal sexuality is exclusively heterosexual and reproductive. It is not a claim that animals hold human-like sexual identities. Researchers can document behavior; identity is a different kind of claim.
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What does “same-sex sexual behavior” mean in animal research?
Researchers commonly use the term same-sex sexual behavior (SSSB) for observable acts between individuals of the same sex. In the 2024 PLOS ONE survey by Anderson and colleagues, examples included sexual mounting, intromission and genital contact. Definitions are not uniform: some studies also consider courtship, pair bonds or alloparenting.
Context matters. A mount or genital touch is not automatically sexual; behavior may be coded as play, affiliation or dominance instead. Researchers also have to identify individuals’ sexes reliably, which can be difficult in some species or field conditions. SSSB is therefore a practical research category, not a universal description of what an act means to the animals involved.
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What does the evidence say about how common it is?
The strongest takeaway is that the published record is not the same as the full record of observation. Anderson and colleagues’ 2024 survey reported these results:
| Survey measure | Result | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Respondents who had observed SSSB in their study species | 56 of 73 responses (76.7%) | Many respondents had observed it, but this is not an estimate of how often it occurs in animals. |
| Respondents who collected data, among those who had observed it | 27 of 56 (48.2%) | Observation did not always lead to systematic data collection. |
| Data collectors who reported publishing on it | 5 of 27 (18.5%) | Only a minority of those who collected data said they had published findings. |
| Species named by respondents with no published report known to the study authors | 17 of 44 unique species (38.6%) | Some species reported by survey respondents were not represented in the authors’ known published record. |
The survey was preliminary. It gathered responses between June and August 2021 and was published in 2024. Sixty-five respondents provided 73 responses about study species, covering 52 species; most respondents studied primates. The survey did not ask how frequently the behavior occurred, distinguish captive from wild observations in its questions, or represent all animal researchers and taxa. Its percentages describe the responses, not prevalence across the animal world.
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Anderson and colleagues summarized the broader literature this way: “Same-sex sexual behaviour (SSSB) occurs in most animal clades, but published reports are largely concentrated in a few taxa.” The point is about the distribution of published reports—not a complete census of species or a measure of how common the behavior is.
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Why can same-sex behavior be underreported?
The survey points to several ways behavior can go unrecorded or unpublished. Some bouts may be brief, hard to see or difficult to interpret. Researchers may not be certain of an animal’s sex, or may classify an interaction as affiliation, play or dominance rather than sexual behavior. These challenges affect what can be recognized and how consistently observations can be compared.
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Among survey respondents who had not collected data or published on SSSB, the most frequently selected reasons included viewing it as rare or anecdotal and seeing it as a poor fit for lab priorities. No respondent selected discomfort or sociopolitical concerns as a reason. That result describes this limited sample; it does not establish that social bias is absent from science more broadly.
What does the mammal research add?
A separate 2023 study by Gómez, González-Megías and Verdú analyzed evolutionary correlates of SSSB using published reports for 261 mammal species in its dataset. The figure is a count of species described in that literature-based dataset, not an exhaustive census of mammals, all animals or the proportion of any group that engages in the behavior.
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The mammal analysis and the 2024 survey answer different questions: one examines reported patterns across mammal species, while the other asks researchers about observing, recording and publishing the behavior. Together, they show why a literature count should not be mistaken for a complete measure of animal behavior.
Does same-sex behavior mean an animal is gay or queer?
Not on the evidence described here. SSSB records actions or social behaviors; it does not show that animals understand or experience human categories such as gay, lesbian, bisexual or queer in the same way people do. Applying those labels as literal claims about animal identity goes beyond what these studies establish.
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The queer framing can still be useful: it challenges the assumption that animal sexuality is always heterosexual, exclusively reproductive or best understood through human expectations. The careful distinction is between using that framing to question assumptions and claiming knowledge of an animal’s identity that the evidence does not provide.
Why might animals engage in same-sex behavior?
Researchers have discussed possible functions including social bonding, conflict management and dominance. These are hypotheses or context-specific interpretations, not one settled explanation for every species. The behavior may have different meanings or consequences across species and situations, and the cited studies do not establish a single function that applies throughout the animal world.
Can we compare which species are “most queer”?
Not responsibly with the evidence summarized here. A useful comparison would need to account for what researchers observed, how they defined SSSB, whether observations came from systematic sampling or opportunistic reports, and the taxonomic and ecological context. It would also need to consider whether interactions were classified as sexual, affiliative, playful or dominance-related.
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A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Without comparable methods and frequency data, a species ranking would confuse differences in research effort and reporting with differences in behavior. The available evidence supports a more careful conclusion: same-sex behavior is documented in many animal groups, while what has been systematically studied and published remains uneven.
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