Ducks

I was browsing around in my favorite tabloids and my attention got drawn to the IgNobel awards this year. Specifically, in the biology part. So I found this study by Dr. Moeliker on the sexuality of ducks. Check it out.

Originally written by Mark Henderson. I think he’s from The Times.
[b]When a male mallard duck flew into the glass facade of Rotterdam’s Natural History Museum in 1995, Kees Moeliker had little idea that he was about to witness a landmark in biological science.

Upon hearing a loud bang a floor below his office, the scientist rushed to investigate. He found the bird’s lifeless body on the ground - and another drake “raping the corpse”.

Eight years later, Dr Moeliker’s contribution to ornithological knowledge has finally been recognised. His seminal paper, entitled The First Case of Homosexual Necrophilia in the Mallard, Anas platyrhynchos, was honoured last night with an Ig Nobel prize, commemorating achievements that “cannot or should not be reproduced”.

The study of the unfortunate duck, which won the biology prize, was one of ten remarkable pieces of research cited in Harvard University’s annual Ig Nobel awards, the Nobel Prize spoof that celebrates bizarre and apparently pointless science.
[/b]

I found this site, which says Moeliker timed the rape. 75 minutes. On another one I read the live duck kept hitting the dead one’s head with his beak. I lost the link for it, though.

I don’t know who is the sickest: the rapist, Moeliker (for studying the case as he did) or me, for searching for info on it.

Originally posted by Ren
I don’t know who is the sickest: the rapist, Moeliker (for studying the case as he did) or me, for searching for info on it.

3 way tie.

o.O

Well during Duck mating season my gr12 class was having our retreat. SO we’re up there at the camp…and we’re walking along…and we see some ducks crowded around another duck. It was a duck gangbag, there were like 9 ducks taking turns on this one female. It was scary.

Originally posted by Cala
o.O

I have already seen a gay orca gangbang (no, it was not the wild ones giving Keiko a ‘warm’ welcome, he was straight). Not live, though. I had it in a local scientific magazine. I have also studied cases of rapes among dolphins. Homossexuality is as common among them as among humans, but when it comes to rapes something strange happens. Seems like they tend to rape only females in the wild and only males when in captivity. Also, they only rape in groups.

Originally posted by Cala
[b]3 way tie.

o.O [/b]

There’s a certain kind of monkey that has all kinds of sex as a social interaction. Male-male, male-female, female-female, everyone does it with everyone else for reasons from tension relief to appreciation.

Bonobos, right? I only know of 2 species that have rates of homossexuality among populations higher than humankind’s rates (there are more for sure), and one of them are the bonobos. The other one is the american gopher. Both rate specially high on safism.

Originally posted by Ren
Seems like they tend to rape only females in the wild and only males when in captivity. Also, they only rape in groups.

That reminds me of humans… like prison rape, for instance, and how some people refere to animals in captivity as being in “prison”. But it’s probably not related.