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.
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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)?
I read the article on line yesterday. Very nice. Keep up the good work.
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?
Wow, the square peg in round hole idea has nothing on this opposite handedness in duck genitalia. Almost ducks are from Venus; drakes are from a mirror universe. Intelligent design, my aunt Fanny. Really clever, these ducks.
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.