Cloaca? Do birds only have one orifice for mating and elimination?
The water birds I’ve heard are real nasty are swans. No cites, sorry, but the ill-natured disposition of swans even figures in a few P.G. Wodehouse stories, the swan-related episodes always ending with the human running away as fast as he could, or climbing onto the roof.
Whew.
<Decides to sign up for that CPR class after all>
Men are not dogs - they’re ducks.
Who let the ducks out? Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack!
Surely I’m not the only one. . .
[Apu] Your ducks are really trying my patience… but they’re so cute. [/Apu]
I lived on a small man-made pond and the MONSCOBIE DUCKS inhabitated the place. The babies are really cute. Yellow and fuzzy but after about a month they are ugly and leave their acid droppings everywhere. You cannot get the poop off the sidewalk because of its chemical make up.
They nest everywhere they can and often.
OOOOOOOOh they drive me nuts!
Funny thing is the ducks could never be found near the Vietnamese household. Things that make you go hmmm…
MEBuckner, that’s the first thought I had, too. I don’t think I want to know the story behind that search.
Velma, my first thought were along the lines of Bruce_Daddy’s. As a matter of fact, I was planning on searching for a punnable phrase, but the subject matter ejected all extraneous thought from my mind :eek: (Good catch, Bruce :))
The author of the paper cited in the OP won the Ig Nobel for Biology in 2003. The Ig Nobel prizes are awarded by the Annals of Improbable Research to scientists who publish or otherwise do research into things that probably shouldn’t be researched.
At least, that’s where I first ran across this report of homosexual necrophiliac mallards.
I kid you not, there are a number of scientific articles written about necrophila in the animal world. (This is the first one I’ve seen about homosexual necrophilia, though.) It’s often referred to as “Davian behavior,” in reference to:
In birds, this is called “avian Davian behavior.” (I am not making this up.)
By the way, ducks are one of the few kinds of birds in which the male has a penis, which is usually retracted within the cloaca. The Argentine Lake Duck has a penis half as long as its body length (equivalent to a human having one about 3 feet long.)
The 20-cm Spiny Penis of the Argentine Lake Duck (Oxyura vittata)
Ducks!
I don’t know what’s wrong with these ducks today!
Ducks!
They are necrophiliac and they’re gay!
Ducks!
They’re all mounting corpses all along the beach!
Horny, crazy, dirty, lazy, rapists!
While we’re on the subject:
Ducks!
You can photograph it and they don’t care!
Ducks!
They will mount and hump while you stand and stare!
Why can’t they be like swans are,
Perfect in every way?
What’s the matter with ducks today?
Colibri, I was gonna have to give you a stern Official Warning about posting porn links, but since that just takes you to an “AUTHORIZATION CHECK” sign in for BioOne, I guess that satisfies the “two-click rule”.
I swear to dog, Eve…first post that made me need to tell you all about the coffee now drenching my monitor. Gotta love them show tunes!
Previously when I’d heard someone mention deboning a duck…
Now I know why a duck’s quack doesn’t echo…
What?
What’s wrong, you ask? Well, I’m kinda down in the dumps lately. Weather change and all. Job sucks. Bunions achin like a mutha----
oh. I see.
Bravo, Eve!
I always thought they were saying that birds of a feather flocked together.