KipWellsFan Posted March 8, 2005 Share Posted March 8, 2005 http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/res...1432991,00.html As he recounts in his seminal paper, The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard anas platyrhynchos, he was in his office in the Natuurmuseum Rotterdam, when he was alerted by a bang to the fact a bird had crashed into the glass facade of the building. "I went downstairs immediately to see if the window was damaged, and saw a drake mallard (anas platyrhynchos) lying motionless on its belly in the sand, two metres outside the facade. The unfortunate duck apparently had hit the building in full flight at a height of about three metres from the ground. Next to the obviously dead duck, another male mallard (in full adult plumage without any visible traces of moult) was present. He forcibly picked into the back, the base of the bill and mostly into the back of the head of the dead mallard for about two minutes, then mounted the corpse and started to copulate, with great force, almost continuously picking the side of the head. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted March 8, 2005 Share Posted March 8, 2005 They showed a flock of ducks Bea Arthur's picture and 1 in 10 preferred it to another duck . . . Simple research Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knightni Posted March 8, 2005 Share Posted March 8, 2005 Okay, I fail to see the appeal of this article. :puke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southsider2k5 Posted March 8, 2005 Share Posted March 8, 2005 QUOTE(knightni @ Mar 8, 2005 -> 11:20 AM) Okay, I fail to see the appeal of this article. :puke or a dead gay duck for that matter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlaSoxxJim Posted March 8, 2005 Share Posted March 8, 2005 (edited) Well, first, Kees Moeliker was awarded an "Ig Nobel" Prize, not a Nobel prize. Details, details... Second, the joke answer: If the one duck was only mostly dead, how better to revive him than with a firm how-do-ya-do? in the backside? Third, the serious - albeit humorous - biological answer: Homosexuality is actually not uncommon in vertebrates, and neither is forced sex, rape, gang rape, etc. Interestingly, but not unexpectedly, cases of homosexuality are almost always in male animals. From an energetics/evolutionary perspective this makes complete sense. Alas, sperm is cheap, and the consequences of an incorrect mating event - with another male, with a different species, with a tree stump, with a house slippert, etc., are negligible. For females, however, the consequences of an incorrect mating are much more severe. Eggs are not cheap, nor is maternal care pre or post-partuition. If females only come into estrus for a brief period each year, making tghe wrong mate selections during that brief window of opportunity could mean you do not reproduce that year. Even worse, from an individual fitness perspective, if week offspring or inviable hybrid offspring from heterospecific mating were produced, the maternal investment put into rearing those mistakes is of ecological significance if your neighbors are successfully passing their genes on to the next generation and you are not. It is precisely for these reasons that elaborate courtship rituals have evolved in the animal kingdom, and also why it is always the female who gets to be the choosey one. Making the correct mating choice is a lot more ecologically important for females than for males. Folks tend to get in trouble when they apply insights from animal behavior to humans, but I'll do it anyway. Male and female human behavior (with exceptions to be sure, and social mores that blur things quite a bit) closely follows all of the above rules. Males feel a biological compulsion to mate with just about any female who makes herself available (although they don't usually act on these impulses), and also a compulsion to mate with their chosen mate as often as possible because we have evolved under a set of rules that says sperm is cheap and get it out into the population. Males also tend to self-satisfy more frequently than even honest females will cincede, again because sperm is cheap. Females, on the other hand, are more selective, typically feel intense sexual urges only on a cyclical basis (when they are most apt to conceive of course), and are rightly concerned with tying up a lit of reproductive time rearing young and for that reason want them to be fit progeny. Edited March 8, 2005 by FlaSoxxJim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted March 8, 2005 Share Posted March 8, 2005 Sperm is Cheap That would make such a cool adverteasing slogan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soxy Posted March 8, 2005 Share Posted March 8, 2005 QUOTE(Texsox @ Mar 8, 2005 -> 12:08 PM) Sperm is Cheap That would make such a cool adverteasing slogan. I think that should be Playboy's new slogan. Or Britney Spears'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted March 8, 2005 Share Posted March 8, 2005 An old farmer decided that it was time to get a new rooster for his hens. The current rooster was still doing an okay job, but he was getting on in years so the farmer figured that getting a new rooster couldn't hurt anything. So, he gets a young rooster and lets it loose in the barn yard. The old rooster sees the young one strutting around and he gets a little worried. "So, they're trying to replace me," thinks the old rooster, "I've got to do something about this!" He walks up to the new bird and says, "So, you're the new guy in town. I bet you really think you're hot stuff, don't you? I'm not exactly ready for the chopping block yet. I bet I'm still the better bird and to prove it, I challenge you to a race around that hen house over there. We'll run around it ten times and whoever finishes first, gets to have all the hens for himself." Well, the cocky young rooster was a proud sort and he definitely thought that he was more than a match for the old guy, so he said, "okay, you're on. And since I know that I'm so great, I'll even give you a head start of half a lap. I'll still win easily." So, the two roosters go over to the hen house to start the racae and all the hens gather around to watch. The race begins and all the hens start cheering the roosters on. After the first lap, the old roster is still maintaining his lead. After the second lap, the old guy's lead has slipped a little but he's still hanging in there. Unfortunately, the old rooster's lead continued to slip each time around and by the fifth lap he just barely led the young rooster. By then, the farmer has heard all the commotion. He ran into the house, got his shotgun, and ran out to the barn yard, figuring a fox or something was after his chickens. When he got there, he saw the two roosters running around the hen house with the old rooster still slightly in the lead. He immediately took his shotgun, aimed, fired, and blew the young rooster away. He walked away slowly saying to himself...."Damn! That's the third gay rooster I've bought this month!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldmember Posted March 8, 2005 Share Posted March 8, 2005 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WilliamTell Posted March 8, 2005 Share Posted March 8, 2005 That's just plain weird. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EvilJester99 Posted March 8, 2005 Share Posted March 8, 2005 Well thats research the world simply couldn't have done without..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WilliamTell Posted March 8, 2005 Share Posted March 8, 2005 QUOTE(EvilJester99 @ Mar 8, 2005 -> 01:22 PM) Well thats research the world simply couldn't have done without..... lol agreed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlaSoxxJim Posted March 8, 2005 Share Posted March 8, 2005 QUOTE(Texsox @ Mar 8, 2005 -> 01:08 PM) Sperm is Cheap That would make such a cool adverteasing slogan. Or in Latin for us science geeks: Sperma est vilis! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted March 8, 2005 Share Posted March 8, 2005 QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Mar 8, 2005 -> 04:28 PM) Or in Latin for us science geeks: Sperma est vilis! That would make a great tattoo, someone call D12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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