Zoo accidentally spends four years encouraging hyenas to have gay sex
A zoo has accidentally spent four years trying to breed with a pair of male hyenas.
Maruyama Zoo in Sapporo, Japan, obtained rare spotted hyenas Kami and Kamutori from a South Korean zoo in 2010, as a ‘male and female pair’ for breeding.
However, after an extensive four-year breeding programme failed to produce any offspring, the zoo this week examined the hyenas under anaesthesia to diagnose the problem – and discovered they were both male.
Kami – who had been presumed to be a five-year-old female, was actually another male, the zoo explained in a statement.
A spokesperson explained: “It is very difficult to identify the sex of the spotted hyena, because the external genitalia of the male and female are similar.”
The zoo added that it “has plans to introduce a female in the future, with the aim of breeding” with either Kami or Kamutori.
