Top newswire LGBTQ Nation reports on a new study published in the respected scientific journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, which reveals that samesex behaviours and homosexual relationships and bonding are common in over one thousand five hundred higher mammalian species, including fifty nine species of primate - the family group of dextrous, intelligent creatures to which humans belong. The study’s authors researched 96 peer-reviewed studies documenting homosexuality to compile one of the most comprehensive datasets for primates to date. The study found that same sex behaviours are a “persistent and integral component of primate social [practices].” In fact, the prevalence of homosexual behaviours across a variety of closely related primate species — and over several lines of descendants — “indicates a deep evolutionary root or multiple independent evolutionary origins,” the study’s authors wrote. This strongly indicates an origin for homosexuality long before the rise of anatomically modern humans, around two hundred thousand years ago. Past theories have suggested that animals exhibit same sex behaviours to increase group cohesion, to signal dominance among a larger group, to practice for procreative sex, or as a result of mistaken gender identity in species where males and females look similar. LGBTQ Nation's Daniel Villareal reports that "Social cohesion was likely a possible reason for same sex behaviours, researchers said, especially since they found that the occurrence homosexuality was more likely in primate species that live in drier environments where food is scarce and the threat of predators is high; in species that have longer lifespans and greater differences in physical size between sexes; and in species with more complex social structures and hierarchies". The conclusion is that homosexuality is a social advantage for the species in which it commonly occurs and that it is an important part and parcel of the natural order.