The Bull And Male Donkey Who Choose Each Other Again And Again (For Sex)

Elisabetta Palagi, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Pisa, had sent her team of research students to Ethiopia to study geladas, monkeys whose hearts appear to gleam out of their chests. But as her students watched the geladas munch on a grassy plateau alongside other grazing animals, they noticed a peculiar interaction between two other animals. A bull approached a male donkey and mounted him. This behavior did not seem to bother the donkey. The donkey did not kick him or otherwise try to escape the interaction. The researchers contacted Palagi and asked if she thought this cross-species intercourse was worth studying. "I said yes," Palagi wrote in an email. After close observation, the researchers found that the the bull, dubbed Achille, and the donkey, dubbed Patroclo, have a persistent, mutual sexual relationship, which is described in a new paper in Current Biology. Achille and Patroclo's relationship was not news to the local herders, who laughed when they saw the researchers filming the unexpected pair. "What was an unexpected observation for us was evidently a familiar sight to them," Palagi said. (The paper includes explicit footage of the pair's mating that we have omitted out of respect for their privacy.) The plateau, with scattered gelada monkeys and Achille and Patroclo nuzzling on the left.

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