Are any Animals Truly Monogamous?

Monogamy --the practice of mating with a single
individual for an extended period of time--isn't

that popular in the animal kingdom. Only about
3% of mammals are monogamous, and, although

95% of birds pair off (at least for one breeding
season), paternity tests have revealed that

the avian world is chock-full of cheaters.

The least loyal bird species might be the
superb fairywren: they form lifelong bonds

and, if you watched a pair of them from morning
'til night for an entire breeding season,

you'd think they were perfectly faithful.
But that's only because female fairywrens

cheat under cover of darkness. Using radio
transmitters to track their movements, researchers

discovered that fertile females make daily,
pre-dawn flights to other territories. These

trips only last about 15 minutes, but apparently
that's more than long enough-- DNA tests show

that just 25% of baby superb fairywrens are
their father's biological children.

So modern genetics might be deflating our
romantic notions about lovebirds, but from

a biological standpoint, social monogamy without
sexual monogamy--that is, pairing up with

one individual and then copulating with others
on the side--makes a lot more sense than absolute

sexual loyalty. For birds, pairing up is a
good strategy because their young require

a ton of care, so males increase their chances
of successful reproduction if they stick around

and lend a beak. On the other hand, putting
all of one's eggs in a single basket is a

risky proposition, so it also makes sense
for males to try and slip some of their genetic

material into a few other nests if they can.
Females, of course, can't have more than one

nest, but for their part they can try to sneak
in some variety.

Cheating might also help explain the otherwise
unexpected physical differences between males

and females in apparently monogamous species.
We've long had a solid explanation for male/female

dimorphism in explicitly non-monogamous species:
if a male plans to mate with many females,

he needs to win their affection and fend off
other suitors. Over thousands of generations,

the traits that help him successfully mate
can become more and more pronounced, even

if they serve absolutely no other purpose.

For example, male gorillas--who fight each
other for exclusive mating rights with the

females in their clan-- are much larger than
female gorillas, while male and female gibbons,

which are monogamous, are the same size.

Which brings us to our favorite primates,
homo sapiens. There are undeniable physical

differences between males and females--but
it's unclear whether they're pronounced enough

to suggest that our ancestors lived in harems
like gorillas or whether our differences stem

from a monogamous but adulterous society like
the superb fairywren's.

One thing is clear: among all the species
on Earth, monogamy is rare, and sexual monogamy

is rarer.

There is, however, at least one known example
of perfect, lifelong fidelity, and its name

is Diplozoon paradoxum. When two of these
young flatworms find each other, they literally

fuse together to form what looks like a single
organism, and this adultery-free union lasts

for their entire long and amorous lives...
which they spend sucking blood from fishgills.

A truly romantic attachment!