The polar explorer and the "depraved" penguins.

Back in 1910, on Captain Scott's expedition to the south pole, George Murray Levick studied the penguins:

He was shocked by what he described as the "depraved" sexual acts of "hooligan" males who were mating with dead females. So distressed was he that he recorded the "perverted" activities in Greek in his notebook....

"What is happening there is not in any way analogous to necrophilia in the human context," [said Douglas Russell, curator of eggs and nests at the Natural History Museum]. "It is the males seeing the positioning that is causing them to have a sexual reaction."

It is the males seeing the positioning that is causing them to have a sexual reaction.... sounds oddly human to me.

"They are not distinguishing between live females who are awaiting congress in the colony, and dead penguins from the previous year which just happen to be in the same position. It is the males seeing the positioning that is causing them to have a sexual reaction."

Yes, yes, the previous year... that's a striking lack of distinction, but they've been kept refrigerated.