The Animal Kinkdom

We human beings are more like the animals than we'd readily admit. Just ask Charles Darwin, whose theory on evolution rocked the Nineteenth century; even a few nuts in the State of New York are still perturbed by the whole ape-linking concept. Recent studies show how animals behave in some fun ways that may not be that different from how people do.

The New York Times, for instance, recently featured an article on the mating games of spiders. The brilliant Dr. Hebets at Cornell changed the color of the forelegs of the male wolf spider (a quite nefarious-looking critter I must say) with either black or brown nailpolish. Evidently, this makes the females either totally hot for a given spider, or, well, the gals just eat the unattractive guy. Now that's eating out.

And when you think someone's more attractive 'cause they're hitched, well, it's maybe kinda biological. Supposedly, according to the article, "female Japanese quail not only prefer males that they have observed copulating, they will also go after a male they have previously rejected after observing him mate with another female." Is that why everyone's in love with Colin Farrell?

For more animal gossip, Nature reports "Genital fiddling is unique to guinea baboons, but other primates invade each other's space in similarly challenging ways. White-faced capuchin monkeys, for example, stick their fingers up each other's noses in greeting." Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for linking to this one (no, Mr. Sullivan's not an animal).