Shock at sexually ‘depraved’ penguins led to 100-year censorship

Study from 1915 of sexual habits of Adelie penguins described necrophilia and ‘paedophilia’

Adelie penguins

NECROPHILIA, homosexuality and ‘paedophilia’ in Adelie penguins shocked an Edwardian Antarctic explorer so much that he wrote down his observations in Greek to prevent anyone but educated gentlemen from reading them.

Observations of Adelie penguins’ sexual habits recorded by George Murray Levick, a medical officer on the ill-fated Scott Antarctic expedition of 1910-13, have been published for the first time by the Natural History Museum after being suppressed 100 years ago because they were too explicit.

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