Georgia and Mara attempt to emulate fish with gills in honor of Georgia's love for underwater critters.

Credit: Georgia Leaker

This is Mara and Georgia's last week at the office. We have had many cakes to celebrate birthdays, I have left countless pink notes on Mara's computer informing her she is not allowed to return to New York because I'll miss her, and the amount of strange lollies from the local Chinese supermarket consumed is off the charts!

(I have also educated Mara on such Australian icons as Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - undoubtedly the best Australian film ever.)

This week we have moved from the creatures of the deep blue to those that prefer to hang out on dry land (mostly). Mara's focus has been the bizarre mating rituals of animals, while mine has been the homosexual tendencies of animals. Scientists are desperate to explain it, I say let the animals be queer! We can all boogie on down at a gay bar to Lady Gaga and wear feathers in our hair and be merry!

Poor little homosexual penguins at Toronto Zoo were separated and have since been pining for each other - but the good news is that the couple will be reunited soon!

Other animal story-related mood swings involve my upcoming piece on koalas being afflicted with chlamydia, which makes us sad, and the bonobos' penis sword fighting that Mara has been researching, which makes us giggle!

We learned that if you change the temperature around an incubated lizard egg you could change its gender. And porcupines urinate on their potential mates to get them ready for sex. Also, the clownfish is only one of MANY gender-bending animals out there, waiting to change sex when the time comes. There are lizards that are exclusively female; banana slugs with penises the same size as their bodies; spiders with chemical weaponry in their webs - and we know all about it!

I walked into this office knowing almost NOTHING about science. Absolutely nil, nada, zilch! (My grandma called the other day and told me she'd been reading my articles, but she thought I didn't know anything about science!)

I leave having learned a truckload about bizarre animals and the wacky things they do… I'd go almost so far as to say I am now an expert on freaky animal behaviour.

So, Grandma, you are right, I don't know anything about science, but I do know how to learn and I certainly have a few new (freaky-animal-studying) career options if this writing thing doesn't work out for me. (I'm thinking of asking David Attenborough for an internship next…)

Our final fish of the week is the brown trout that fake-orgasms - stolen from Mara's list of bizarre mating rituals. The female brown trout settles in the sand and digs a pit to lay her eggs in, and then she begins to quiver in the water with her mouth open. The male brown trout sees her quivering and assumes the same position, quivering, mouth open. The female then lays her eggs and the male fertilises them… At least, this is supposed to be what happens. In reality, if the male isn't in the right position at the time, the female will 'fake' the release of her eggs, resulting in the male depositing his sperm onto nothing - after all, she isn't wasting her eggs on just any boy-fish who swims her way!

This is the end of the road for me at COSMOS, it has been so much more than I could've asked for and I honestly loved every minute (even the time Heather made me do maths… which I failed miserably at, so embarrassing!).

So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, adieu,
Georgia