Monday, May 07, 2007

Questions you never expected science to answer

A recent article in Cosmos magazine had a headline that would stump creative genius of even an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters.

Duck genitals locked in arms race


Seriously, would you have written an article on that topic? The topic comes up because ducks, especially mallards, engage in rape at levels far beyond even most fraternities. According to the article, as many as 40% of all mallard matings are the result of males forcing themselves on females.

This also answers a question that Holly posed after spotting a pair of doves gettin' it on. Do birds have penises? The answer is that most do not, but a few still do. Historically they did, but have evolved into a situation where they just have single cloacae on both sexes which they use for waste disposal and sex, the sex being performed by a 'match-the-hole' technique.

Seriously, did you ever want to know all this?

Stupid science.

Hat tip to the guys over at Grylliade.

3 comments:

SerenitySprings said...

Just think, I get to spend the rest of my life with this guy. :)

VikingMoose said...

Lunchstealer certainly has a way with words and images!

:)

zooplah said...

I personally think it's interesting. It's kind of disturbing, but no means yes, says the mallard. Oh, and the sex thing, very interesting. Match-the-hole, huh?