1./ A distracting little thread about ducks and the dark side of Nature. Warning! If you’re of a sensitive nature don’t press 👇 cos duck ‘sex’ is a vignette of violence. A few seconds after the idyllic scene in Trafalgar Square yesterday a male arrived and a melee ensued.
2./ It turns out ...ducks and their mating habits are a weird wonder, as well as a testament to the extraordinary power of natural selection over millions of years. Of course maybe we shouldn’t be surprised duck ‘sex’ is so unpalatable.
3./ The ancestors of ducks were dinosaurs after all. Here’s a great piece about the missing link between those waddling creatures we know and love and a velociraptor type creature which has inevitably been dubbed ...Quackosaurus Rex. curiosity.com/topics/this-cr…
4./ For millions of years female ducks and their ancestors were attacked by males. But long ago they began to evolve a brilliant response: a corkscrew like vagina with dead ends which they could control to prevent themselves becoming pregnant. newscientist.com/article/dn1176… 4/4
5./ I know we’re not supposed to anthropomorphise but the little evil bastards that are male ducks promptly evolved right back developing by natural selection elaborate corkscrew cocks. And not just that. Duck dicks are huge for their body size, some are toothed....
6./ And many of the nasty little fuckers (sorry) grow their huge knobs anew every year. But Nature isn’t always red in tooth and claw...or in this case bill and webbed foot. When a desperate attempt was made to breed from the last remaining Blue Ducks in the UK it went awry.
7./ Two males, Ben and Jerry, were introduced to a female called Cherry. After half-hearted courtship the males fell in love -with each other. “We were looking forward to eggs but Ben and Jerry make a lovely couple”, said the warden. Amen. theregister.co.uk/2009/03/10/blo…
8./ It’s hard to say who was more relieved, Ben and Jerry or Cherry. It’s always tempting but there are no moral lessons to be learned from animal behaviour. Biology may be inescapable but our morality -thankfully- can be so much better than that of the seemingly innocent duck.
9./ And here’s a heartwarming example. Security guards in Paddington escort a duck and her 11 ducklings through the new office development for hundreds of metres down to the safety of the Regent’s Canal. Aww.
