That’s why this week’s report of the first scientifically documented male-to-male sexual interactions between two humpback whales off the coast of Hawaii is not surprising.

When the Canadian biologist Bruce Bagemihl published his book Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity – listing 450 species exhibiting such behaviour, including whales and dolphins – it was used in evidence in a US supreme court case in 2003 that struck down, as unconstitutional, homophobic “sodomy” laws being used in Texas.

It is telling, too, that the best-known work of literary fiction written about whales, Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick, is a decidedly queer book.

Melville conflates the queerness and diversity of his characters – his narrator, Ishmael, is declared married to his shipmate, the multi-tattooed Queequeg, based on a Māori warrior – with the mysterious sensuality of the whales he is describing.

Slipper shells stuck together on the beach, which you might find when beachcombing, are in fact changing sex, from female at the bottom to male at the top.

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