The shocking truth you don't know about ducks
If we drew a diagram of the strangest mating behaviors in the animal kingdom, including the behavior of lobsters urinating on their partners, and the group mating rituals practiced by snakes, ducks... duck mating would occupy its place in this diagram as a cartoonish and sadistic behavior at the same time.
Mallards, these gentle creatures, engage in mating behaviors that are truly disturbing, to the point that this behavior falls under an entire chapter in the book “The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shaped the Animal World — and Our World,” written by an ornithologist at the University of California. (Yale) Professor Richard O. Broome. In addition, the issue of duck mating gained notoriety after 2013, when news leaked that the US government had contributed $400,000 to study duck mating behavior. This news was published by Mother Jones under the name “Duck Penis Entrance.”
Despite this bad reputation, Professor Richard Broome, a MacArthur Genius Grant winner, believes that understanding mating behavior in ducks may help us understand evolution, and understanding mating behavior begins with understanding the structure of the male penis. Ducks.
Ducks are different from other birds, and one of the differences is the fact that male ducks have penises, unlike 97% of other bird species. In fact, duck penises are the most distinctive in terms of size (when comparing the size of the penis to the body) of all vertebrates. For example: Male Argentine lake ducks, which weigh a quarter of a kilogram and are 30 centimeters long, have a penis ten centimeters longer than their length!
Duck penises grow and increase in size each mating season, and when the season ends, the penis begins to shrink until it reaches 10% of its fully developed size. The penis is kept inside the male's body, which is only expected to be revealed during intercourse. Richard Broome explains: “The process of removing the penis in male ducks is similar to a combination of two processes: the first is using your arm to remove the sleeve of an inside-out jacket, and the second is using a hydraulic motor to move the folding roof of sports cars!”
The matter becomes even more strange when we also know that the duck's penis is not straight; Rather, it is spiral in shape and rotates counterclockwise from its beginning to its end! The Russian duck rod can complete ten spiral turns with a length of up to 20 centimetres.
Broome says: “Duck penises resemble various strange toys that you might find among aliens.” He adds: “Duck penises come in various shapes: ribbed, grooved, and even serrated shapes, in order to make it easier for them to penetrate the genital organs of female ducks, which are themselves “It is long and also curls in on itself.”
Female duck reproductive organs are full of bends and twists that Broome describes as “like roads with dead-end branches.” Duck vaginas spiral around themselves clockwise, unlike male ducks' spirals, which rotate counterclockwise!
Here comes the role of evolutionary biology and mate selection. The reproductive process also begins to take another dark course. Many duck species put the males under a difficult test, meaning that it is difficult for the males to satisfy the females when choosing a mate. In order for a male duck to have the opportunity to mate with a female; He must flaunt brightly colored plumage and master beautiful dances and calls. In other words, he must be charming, a great singer and a great dancer as well.
Most males are normal and do not fit the previous description, so what can they do?
Broome says that “forced penetration is a common and widespread process in many species of ducks,” and adds: “These group behaviors are socially organized and are ‘ugly, violent, dangerous and even deadly’ events, and sometimes end with the death of the female!”…
“This behavior represents a selfish male evolutionary strategy that is inconsistent with the evolutionary desires of female duck victims, and is likely inconsistent with the evolutionary interest of the species as a whole.” He also adds: “These males are messing with the natural evolutionary system in order to spread their genes.”
But female ducks have developed ways to defend themselves by increasing the complexity of their anatomy. This complication includes, in some cases, sharp incisions inside the vagina that act almost like teeth, making fertilization difficult for males during forced penetration.
Professor Broome also says: “Male ducks have evolved penises that enable them to penetrate the vagina of an unwilling female, and females, in return, have developed another new way - an anatomical mechanism - to counteract the male’s spiral erections and prevent him from forcibly fertilizing their eggs.” This explains why duck vaginas are so complex and why duck penises have evolved to match them, a kind of evolutionary arms race called antagonistic coevolution.
Finally, it is really depressing to know how ducklings are born. But the issue is not that bad. Some species of ducks and most birds have stopped this competition and have completely abandoned the penis. No more forced penetration, and no more complicated vaginas. Instead, female birds and penisless males rub their cloaca together (the cloaca is the posterior opening in birds that contains the testicles in males or ovaries in females) in an act called “cloacal kissing,” a phenomenon that showcases the power of natural selection and how beauty and brutality drive... Development.
Source: websites