Homosexual Necrophilia in the Mallard Duck and Other Unsolicited Dinner Party Anecdotes

THE FIRST CASE OF HOMOSEXUAL NECROPHILIA IN THE MALLARD ANAS PLATYRHYNCHOS (AVES: ANATIDAE)

Once upon a time, on 5 June 1995 at 5.55 pm, a duck flew into the glass facade of the Natuurmuseum Rotterdam in the Netherlands and died. The rest - as they say - is history, but what follows is the story behind this article's title.

Once upon another time, on 22 July 2008 at 1.48 pm (and I still have the faded receipt to prove it), I bought a book titled The Ig Nobel Prizes 2: An all new collection of the world’s unlikeliest research by Marc Abrahams. The book was born from the annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony at Harvard University, where the world’s most eccentrically innovative minds are honoured for their unique endeavours, and demonstrates the in-fucking-credible lengths to which people will go in the pursuit of knowledge.

Amongst my favourite chapters are “Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans” and "The Irrelevance of Understanding”, but the stand-out for me, at age 30, was sandwiched between pages 92 and 96: “Homosexual Necrophilia in the Mallard Duck”.

THE IG NOBEL BIOLOGY PRIZE WAS AWARDED TO:

C.W. Moeliker, of Natuurmuseum Rotterdam, the Netherlands, for documenting the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck.

Citation: Moeliker, C.W. (2001) The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard Anas platyrhynchos (Aves: Anatidae), DEINSEA 8: 243 - 247.

What the fuck? It took him six years to publish this account? No, that wasn’t what I first thought, because in 2008 when I was reading this book I knew nothing about academic publishing. Actually, I still don’t.

But I was perplexed as to why someone would watch a living mallard drake copulate with a dead mallard drake for 75 minutes. And. Take. Notes. (Little did I know that ten years later I would dutifully observe and record the number of ants of different species foraging on a selection of diets for 100+ hours so, in hindsight, who the fuck am I to judge?)

Moeliker also referred to the act as “rape” and “cruel”, which are rather loaded and anthropomorphic words in what was an otherwise scientifically dry report. But it reminded me of an event in my childhood when I overheard my mother telling my father our backyard ducks “have to go because they are gang-raping the chickens”. Well. That was a confronting image for a kid and it has clearly stayed with me into adulthood, especially after I later learned that roosters don’t even have a penis, they have a vent which they press against the hen’s vent - a cloacal kiss - which sounds kind of sweet in comparison to my horrifying discovery. Drakes, on the other hand, have corkscrew-shaped penises, which they were (and this is the horrifying part) forcibly shoving into a hole that only supposed to be kissed. In. My. Childhood. Backyard.

I tell you, some knowledge can scar you for life. Ignorance can indeed be bliss.

"FEMALE HYENAS MATE THROUGH THEIR PENISES"

This is a quote from Chandler Burr’s 1996 book A Separate Creation and it’s where I first read about this evolutionary oddity in the hyena world.

Of course, a female hyena doesn’t really have a penis, it is a clitoris and a disproportionately enormous one by human standards. What this means is that the female hyena mates through her clitoris…

…which is still fucked up in the extreme, so let me explain:

Biologically, the clitoris is formed from the same tissue as the penis during the process of sexual differentiation in the uterus, as are the scrotum and labia. The female hyena can retract her clitoris (the way you might push your sleeve up your arm) to make a functional vagina, into which the lucky male can insert his actual penis.

The urogenital canal runs the length of the female’s appendage so, not only does she mate through it, she even gives birth through it. During the first birthing process hyena cubs often die because they get stuck and suffocate in the canal, which must also tear at the end to allow the cubs to pass through.

After that, deliveries get easier. And by easier I mean not actually much easier, because the cubs still have to travel from the uterus, make a 180-degree turn in the pelvis, and then successfully emerge from the clitoral sleeve - a trip which is about 60 cm long when their umbilical cords are only 15 cm long!

I think evolution fucked up a little, but haven’t we all?