Ducks Gone Wild
Patricia Brennan, a behavioral ecologist discusses the reproductive war between the ducks. The longer the duck's phallus the more intricate is the female's lower oviduct. Most birds do not have phalluses but a small whole from which the sperm emerges but the ducks seem to have gone beserk in their war to mate with as many females as possible.
Pondering it, Dr. Brennan came to doubt the conventional explanation for how duck phalluses evolved.
In some species of ducks, a female bonds for a season with a male. But she is also harassed by other males that force her to mate. “It’s nasty business. Females are often killed or injured,” Dr. Brennan said.
Species with more forced mating tend to have longer phalluses. That link led some scientists to argue that the duck phallus was the result of males’ competing with one another to fertilize eggs.
“Basically, you get a bigger phallus to put your sperm in farther than the other males,” Dr. Brennan said.
Dr. Brennan realized that scientists had made this argument without looking at the female birds. Perhaps, she wondered, the two sexes were coevolving, with elaborate lower oviducts driving the evolution of long phalluses.
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