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.
Kinkiness, Thy Name Is Duck
Explore the intriguing world of duck phalluses and the evolutionary iceberg behind their absurdly long lengths in avian battles.
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