NEUROBIOLOGY AND THE QUEERNESS OF KINSHIP 113species like prairie voles, cohabitating pair bonds are assumed to be sexu-
ally exclusive.
However, a sea change is taking place in animal behavioral research
on the subject of monogamy. In the past two decades new methodologies
including genetic testing have transformed many assumptions about mo-
nogamy and other sociosexual behaviors in animals. As Ulrich Reichard
summarizes, recent findings on monogamy in birds and mammals suggest
that “social, sexual, and reproductive relationships are complex and var-
ied, even in socially monogamous species where hitherto ‘monogamous’
appeared the only term necessary to describe structures resembling the nu-
clear family” (2012, 66). The coupling of sex and pair bonding, pair bond-
ing and fidelity, and reproduction and caretaking are being challenged. In
avian research the consensus on Lack’s famous declaration in 1968 that 90
percent of birds are monogamous has been overturned (Neudorf 2004).
The use of genetic testing in the 1990s led to the surprising finding that
many birds co-nesting for life often were rearing a group of offspring with
diverse parentages. Reichard notes that less than 25 percent of “monog-
amous” birds studied practiced genetic monogamy, as opposed to social
monogamy. The former refers to sexual exclusivity and the latter to exclu-
sive pair bonding. Genetic monogamy is now considered to be more rare
than once suspected in mammals as well. “Behavioural observations [now]
show that living together in social monogamy does not equate to monoga-
mous mating or reproduction. Thus the females of the Lesser apes, Alpine
marmots, fat-^ tailed dwarf lemurs, aardwolves, common marmosets and
small Mongolian gerbils, and many pair- living birds are not too particular
about sexual fidelity to their male social partners” (2012, 63). When partner
preference and sexual practices are disentangled, animal social patterns
become considerably less predictable.
Surprisingly, not until 2008 was genetic monogamy tested in prairie
voles, but the results were similarly disruptive. At a field lab in Tennessee,
biologist Alexander Ophir and his colleagues put radio collars on ninety-
six prairie voles and tracked their movements in their native habitat. After
two weeks, they identified pair couplings by finding patterns of cohabita-
tion. They also genetically tested pregnant females. The researchers report
that the voles did make pair bonds, but the couples did not exhibit sexual
fidelity. Instead, many of the voles mated with multiple partners while co-