A new video, reportedly shot in Meiji Memorial Forest, Japan, showing a monkey engaging in sexual acts with a deer, has amused researchers across the world and they are now studying this mysterious instinct of animals, which makes them mate outside their own species.
Durig the study, researchers found that the monkeys and deer in the forest have a very strange relationship. In the video, we can see a female macaque climbing above a male Sika deer and starts gyrating against its back furiously. In one instance, the monkey even bites the deer and also tries to pull its antlers.
Earlier, a video featuring a male macaque engaging in a sexual encounter with a female deer went viral on the Internet, and from then, the researchers were quite curious to know more about the mysterious relationship between monkeys and deer in Meiji Memorial Forest.
And now with the new study report published in the recent edition of 'Archives of Sexual Behavior', it has now become evident that animals mate outside their species.
"We observed multiple occurrences of free-ranging adolescent female Japanese macaques performing mounts and sexual solicitations toward sika deer at Minoo, central Japan. Our comparative description of monkey-deer versus monkey-monkey interactions supported the 'heterospecific sexual behavior' hypothesis," wrote the researchers in the study.
Even though the monkey's acts are sexual, scientists believe that deer is allowing them to do this because of potential hygienic benefits.
Some section of people believes that monkeys have learned to do this act after they see people visiting the forest, engaging in sexual activities. However, if this was the case, then the monkeys would have mated only with their own species and not have romantic affair with a different species. This bizarre case literally adds up one more question in the mystery book of nature.
