All right… I am ALL for a science focused on wacky, crazy, mysterious, arcane subjects like mammal mating habits:

However, a group of scientists from Atlanta, Georgia, have discovered a way of damping their ardour. Vole reversal, if you like. By injecting them with a so-called “love gene”, the previously sex-mad beasts are transformed into soppily monogamous creatures devoted to and inseparable from their partners.

I am the first to admit this is absurdly fascinating stuff, especially since it has to do with the “VOLE,” a small rodent I had no knowledge of until today…

But the tenor or let’s say the “theraputic desire” of this type of research strikes me a bit odd and (creeping toward politically suspect terrain too). I really don’t think I need to analyse why this is so ( just read the article for yourself or for that matter infer from the title of the piece Tale of vole reversal and a possible cure for promiscuity) because it is obvious that the loose and easy assocations made between ALL ANIMALS and ALL HUMANS (mostly of the male gender, at least in some articles) are going to be suspect to a cultural anthropologist. Not to mention that I find the uber-medicalization of such things distasteful..

Yet, this little slice of news has piqued my interest in animals and their torrid sexual habits. You see, I was also recently introduced to another fine animal specimin, the echidna.

Now given its weird anatomy and features (see below), my question is….

not whether it is monogamous or “fast, loose, and dirty” but how the heck does it *even have sex* in the first place? I mean he can’t even stand up! And from the look on his face, I just know this poor echnida has yet to be deflowered. Poor little one needs some action….