Female Monkeys Seen Having 'Sexual Interactions' With Deer
A new paper offers the first quantifiable evidence that young female Japanese macaques are sexually pursuing sika deer.
There's some unusual monkey business happening on an island in Japan.
On December 11, scientists at the University of Lethbridge in Canada published a paper revealing what appear to be sex acts between young female Japanese macaques and sika deer. The wild monkeys were observed mounting the deer in Minoo, central Japan.
Similar monkey-deer interactions on Yakushima Island were reported in January 2017. Locals in Minoo most likely have been observing these behaviors since at least 2014, says study co-author Noëlle Gunst. But while the previous research is based on anecdotal evidence, the current work focuses on the numbers.
According to the team, which also consists of researchers Paul Vasey and Jean-Baptiste Leca, this paper is the first
