Female Albatrosses Set Up Same-Sex Partnerships

National Science Foundation study finds that female albatrosses “shack up with each other for years and take turns raising offspring”

By Charles Q. Choi

FOX News

albatross

What happens when there is a shortage of males and a female wants to have a family?

In the case of the Laysan albatross, females shack up with each other for years and take turns raising offspring, research now reveals.

Such behavior might prove common not just with albatrosses, but many other seabirds as well, scientists added.

Researchers have long known that same-sex couples are common in the wild kingdom.

At the Kaena Point Natural Area Reserve on Oahu, Hawaii, researchers now find that roughly a third of Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) nests are pairs of unrelated females.

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Senator Tom Coburn

Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security

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