I don't own these characters or Profit from them. Also while this story contains facts about things that actually happen, overly religious and prudish parents may not want their kids to know these facts. So kids, it would be very wrong of you to continue to read this if you think your parents would disapprove. And being the good kids you are I'm sure you are finding something else to read at this very moment and would never dream of defying their wishes, right?

Wild Kratts: It's Only Natural

By, Clayton Overstreet

Chris: Hey guys, welcome to another great creature adventure! I'm Chris Kratt ant this is my brother Martin!

Martin: Hi kids! We've got a special episode for you today. Something that a lot of nature shows tend to gloss over.

Chris: But nature doesn't really conform to human ideas of what's right and wrong, so we're going to tell you all about a subject that they would never let us discuss on PBS!

Martin: But imagine if they would!

Both: (Turn into Cartoon Characters) Imagine!

000

Some things even life on a flying turtle ship full of adventurers cannot prepare you for. Jimmy Z woke up about two hours after he went to sleep, his stomach rumbling. He needed a midnight snack. He hurried out the door and made it to the fridge where he began searching through the food until he found a salami. He ate half of it, his stomach finally quieting down before putting the rest back.

Suddenly though he heard grunting behind him. A deep animal sound. His stomach was full so he knew it was not that any more. What could it be. He remembered all the times the Kratts had let animals on the ship and shuddered. What could it be? A wolf? A panther? A guinea pig? There was no telling.

Gingerly he tiptoed through the dark ship towards the sound. It was coming from Koki's room. He knocked softly, but whatever it was did not seem to notice. Hesitating he reached out and pushed the button to open the door.

What he saw was mostly a blur as he yelled in surprise, Aviva yelled and moved like a ninja sliding under the covers so quick he was surprised there was not a sonic book, and Koki pulled the blankets up to cover herself too. They all yelled, made eye contact, and yelled again.

"Jimmy, what are you doing in here?" The two women yelled.

"Sorry I thought I heard an animal wandering around the ship again," he said, panicking. "I didn't mean to… I mean I didn't see… I…"

"GET OUT!" They yelled and he pushed the button to close the door just before a lamp hit it.

Chris and Martin stuck their heads out of their rooms. Chris asked, "Hey Jimmy, what's going on?"

000

A little while later everyone was up and dressed and Jimmy said, "I didn't know okay? I mean I didn't think… well that you two were…" He saw the blushing girls.

Martin looked at him. "You seem a bit off there Jimmy. I know it was a shock but…"

"Sorry," he said. "I know it's not such a big deal, but… well my grandmother always used to tell me that that sort of thing was wrong and unnatural. I mean Koki and Aviva are my friends and nothing can change that… but I do feel a bit weirded out."

"Sorry we overreacted Jimmy," Aviva said. "We thought you knew. I mean we've never hidden it or anything."

"Well I do get a little shy about kissing in public," Koki admitted. "So maybe it's not that obvious."

Jimmy looked up at the ceiling. "I just… I always thought you two might end up with Martin and Chris."

"Us?" The brothers said in unison.

Chris said. "Not going to happen Jimmy."

He looked up.
"Don't tell me you two are…"

"That's right," Martin said. We're both… married."

"With kids," his brother added.

"Really? But… I mean you never…"

"Life on the road Jimmy my man," Chris said. "People who study animals in the wild have to make sacrifices. Look at Marty Stouffer, that guy has spent months or even years following around everything from wild sheep to wolverines."

Martin said, "But still I have to say your grandmother was way off about that 'unnatural' comment."

Jimmy looked up. "What do you mean?"

"Well the truth is that scientists have found same-sex couples in just about every animal that mates with another unless they're hermaphroditic."

Chris snapped his fingers. "Hey that's a great idea! Let's make our next creature adventure about finding those kind of animals. I think we'll just do it with the computer though and leave the creature power suits out of it this time. After that incident with the hyenas a few years ago I don't think I want to risk that again."

"Great idea," Aviva said, yawning. But can we do it tomorrow? I haven't got much sleep to night and I'm exhausted." She and Koki shared a smile.

000

The next day they gathered in the Tortuga's control room. Jimmy said, "I don't know about this guy. I saw a man on Fox News the other day saying that there is no evidence in nature that gay relationships are natural."

"Jimmy," Aviva said. "That man was a moron."

Koki nodded. "Yeah seriously. If you look up gay animals on Google you get a lot of pages including a Wikipedia entry. Thirty seconds online and that guy wouldn't have looked like such a doofus."

"Lets do this by animal type," Chris said. "Working up from insects."

Martin shook his head. "Nah, I say we skip bugs and fish. Scientists are pretty sure that most if not all the same-sex relationships between them are accidental. That mating indiscriminately just ensures a likelihood of them breeding successfully."

Jimmy snickered and Koki looked at him. "What's so funny?"

"I was just wondering, if you have two female spiders or two praying mantises, who bites whose head off?" They all chuckled.

Martin said. "Okay, let's start with reptiles and amphibians." Aviva pushed some buttons and a small lizard appeared on the screen. "Now reptiles aren't known for their long term relationships."

"Yeah, don't a lot of them eat each other?" Jimmy asked. "I remember when we were studying gators and once the mating was over they kicked the guys to the curb."

"True, but nature has wonders all around us." Chris pointed at the screen. "Take this little girl. That's a whip-tail lizard, one of several reptile species that have lost all the males in the species. But that doesn't stop them from breeding."

"It doesn't?" Jimmy asked.

"Not at all. You see they still go through the motions with one another and then they reproduce through parthenogenesis."

"What's that?" Aviva asked.

"It's sort of like natural cloning," Martin said. "The females lay eggs and when the babies hatch instead of being a cross between two parents' DNA they are exact copies of their mothers."

Aviva's eyes widened. "Now that's a creature power."

Jimmy looked confused. "But I thought evolution took generations or something. If the males died out how would the females suddenly just develop this ability?"

"Scientists aren't sure," Chris said. "But they do. It's one of the mysteries of the creature world."

Koki said, 'Well what about like in Jurassic Park? I thought frogs and lizards could change genders if they had to."

"They can. Another amazing ability," Martin said. "In a single sex environment some creatures do spontaneously change gender. Nobody is sure how that ability came about so fast either, but it may have something to do with all embryos being inherently female in the first place. A chemical change takes place to fill a need and up pops a male or two or a female or three to help carry on the species."

"Seems a little convenient." Jimmy snorted. "Makes you wonder about that whole evolution versus creationism thing, doesn't it."

"Maybe," Chris said, "But so far nobody has solved that debate in the span of human history so I doubt we're the ones who are going to be able to explain it today."

Aviva said, "So let's move up the evolutionary ladder to birds."

Martin said, "That's a tricky one."

"Why?" Jimmy said. "Are there no gay birds?"

"Oh there are a lot of them, Chris said. "It's just that for years that information was not only unsubmitted, but actually suppressed. They found evidence that penguins had same-sex couples as early as 1911, but George Murray Levick, the man who discovered this, felt the behavior was depraved and that it would be too shocking for the public to hear about it. The report he wrote on it was not even found until 2012."

"In the mean time some penguins in zoos paired off with the same gender and would even raise babies together, but since they mate for life could not be coaxed into being with other mates," Martin said. "Though sometimes when forcibly separated and placed with a different penguin they will eventually take them as a mate later."

Koki smirked. "Hey who doesn't like a man or woman in a tuxedo?"

"I wish I'd known about this when I was younger," Aviva said. "I might not have felt like such a weirdo."

"Well you shouldn't have been made to feel that way at all," Chris said. "With many birds they can have as much as 20% or more of the species being same-sex maters. Mallards are especially known to swing that way."

"The ducks?" Jimmy said, surprised.

"Oh yeah," Martin said. "In fact even those who do the male-female pairs often break up as soon as the female lays the eggs."

"Aren't there any environmental causes?" Jimmy asked.

"Well some tests have shown that pollutants can increase the chances of birds feeling that way, though the experiments used were spotty at best," Chris admitted.

Martin said. "But if you want to see the way it usually works we should go to the king of birds, the swan." He pulled up a picture of a black swan on the screen. "It's estimated that among black swans up to a quarter of the species consists of male same-sex couples. They even manage to have children."

"How?" Koki asked, shocked.

"Well they have two ways of going about it," Chris told them. "In some cases the two males enter into a three way relationship with a female until she lays an egg, then they kick her out of the nest."

"Or they just find a female that has already laid eggs and steal their nests," Martin added. "And due to the male's better fighting ability a lot of times the babies they raise survive better than those raised by the females. Just like with flamingoes."

Jimmy goggled. "You mean pink flamingoes really are gay? I thought that was just a joke."

The Kratts shrugged and Martin said, 'Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction."

"Female pigeons sometimes set up shop together too, so it's not just the male birds."

Jimmy nodded. "Okay, but what about mammals? Isn't that all about dominance? I mean dogs hug legs, but I don't think it has to do with whether the person they're doing it to is male or female. Once they are in heat or whatever they don't care."

"You have a point there Jimmy. A lot of times mammals aren't all that particular especially once estrus hits," Chris said. "In farms around the country to keep horses and bulls from injuring themselves or the females they use special decoys to collect and install genetic material safely. And mounting is often used by animals to show dominance."

"But," Martin said. "Significant portions of all mammalian species have been observed choosing their own sex for preference. Some female dogs for example will not allow males near them, but will mount other females in a heartbeat."

Aviva said, 'I know for a fact that dolphins, one of the most intelligent animals on the planet, often have same-sex partners. Both fresh and salt water varieties."

Jimmy said, "Yeah, but they'll also do humans. One lady in England married a dolphin a few years back."

"The American Bison, elephants, and a lot of other hoofed animals do it all the time," Martin said. "Around 7% or more of rams prefer to mount other rams. Male elephants rarely stay with females past the breeding season, but among same-sex couples they can stay together for years."

"Remember when we did that neck fighting in the giraffe suits?" Chris said. "Well we neglected to mention that afterwards a lot of the time the males do not go for females, but have been observed mounting each other as much as 90% or more of the time. Though there is about 1% of the females that also do it."

"Seems like they don't have a lot of options," Koki said.

A series of monkeys and apes appeared on the screen. Chris said, "It's not uncommon among other primates either. Bonobo monkeys are especially known for female-female couplings and it's largely accepted that the entire species is bisexual. Though similar behavior is found in all the great apes and lesser primates too. Bother genders of Japanese snow monkeys or macaques do it almost as much as the swans."

Jimmy snorted. "Macaque." Everyone ignored him.

Chris pulled up pictures of lions. "Lions do it all the time as well, though the females tend to be observed more in captivity. Among male lions it's not unusual for two males to pair off."

"Which reminds me," Martin said, pulling up a hyena. "Hyena's were once thought to be considered hermaphrodites because not only are they matriarchal, which means that females dominate…" Koki and Aviva high-5ed behind them. "But the females genitals resemble the males so closely that they can be hard to tell apart."

Jimmy frowned. "Yuck."

Aviva patted his shoulder. "Let's face facts Jimmy, there's not much about mating in any species that isn't yucky."

"Even plants are mostly hermaphroditic," Chris said.

He nodded. "True."

"But every species also has it's outcasts. Aside from same-sex couples there are also rogues who leave groups and either try to join others or live alone, often bringing new genetics into inbred societies," Martin said. "In a way it's possible that same-sex couples are nature's way of keeping genetic material in reserve incase of some kind of disaster. Suppose that among a large population of animals a disease that was spread by mating were to devastate a large portion of the species. Same-sex couples might be more isolated."

"Or there's the possibility that there is a third gender," Martin said. "Some scientists believe that when developing some embryos get a few chemicals and hormones wrong. In a few cases this results in obvious male and female genitalia together, but in others it may all be internal or not obvious at all except in their behavior."

Jimmy frowned. "Isn't it a choice?"

"Maybe for some," Aviva said. "Or sometimes people get pushed into doing what they're expected to do whether they want to or not. I've heard of couples married for forty years before admitting that either or both of them were gay."

"And among animals a lot of time a dominant male or female probably doesn't care whether the one they've chosen might not be into it," Chris said. "Sort of like when skinny and weak people are sent to prison really."

Jimmy nodded. "I get it. I guess what I was taught was pretty simplistic compared to the reality."

"A lot of things are Jimmy," Martin said. "Especially when people find facts that make them uncomfortable. That's why it's important to do real research and look into things before forming an opinion."

"And definitely before voicing that opinion where other people can hear you," Koki said pointedly. "Which can show you to be or fool or worse make a lot of other people believe things that aren't true."

Chris nodded. "Absolutely. Especially when you're trying to decide what is and isn't natural. Every creature is different and there are no absolutes. Nature contains all kinds of mysteries and who loves who is just one of them."

Martin put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Hey bro, you know what they say."

Everyone in the room said it together, "It's only natural."

Author's Note

Utah and a few other states just had to allow same-sex marriages whether they like it or not and it's been all over the news. But one of the things that those against it brings up a lot is that it's "Unnatural" and that it does not occur in nature. It's really redundant and, as you know now, completely wrong. I myself once owned a female dog that only mounted other female dogs, snapping at any male that got close.

All the facts presented here are true and easily researchable. I laid them out here for two reasons. One, so that people could educate themselves about a long standing fallacy. Second, to give people a good laugh whenever they see some self-important jerk on TV badmouthing a group of people and making statements about things they know nothing about.