When you find yourself, as I did a few days ago, spending a morning watching the absurdly long phalluses of ducks being coaxed from their nether regions, you can find yourself wondering how your life ended up this way. Fortunately, there is a higher goal to such weirdness. The phalluses of ducks are just the tip of an evolutionary iceberg. The female ducks have their own kinkiness, too. It’s all part of a fierce avian battle of the sexes.
For the latest, see my article in tomorrow’s New York Times. The paper on which it is based appears in the open-access journal PLOS One.
Update 5/1, 11 am: The gossips at Gawker discover the queasy fascination. Welcome to Nature.
May 1st, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Why did not the phalluses evolve to spiral the other way (after the female anatomy evolved this strategy as a way to gain more control)?
May 1st, 2007 at 8:53 pm
I read the article on line yesterday. Very nice. Keep up the good work.
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:11 am
It reminds me of one of those tanker planes that can fill up the nearly empty fuel tank of a 747 while in mid-air.
The real question is, do ducks get penis envy?
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Wow, the square peg in round hole
May 3rd, 2007 at 12:27 pm
With the low success rate of raping ducks, it would be surprising if there is enough of a success rate to drive this kind of change – I would think that Ducks that have a willing mate must also be having higher success with the longer penis.