Thursday, February 22, 2007

The Birds And The Bees...

Damn those webcomics. The same one that defined puberty so entertainingly a few days ago today raised an interesting question; why do we use the birds and the bees as a euphemism for sex? Let's look at the sexual habits of these creatures.

First, the birds. Well, today in Behavioural Ecology we were educated about dunnocks (hedge sparrows) and mallard ducks. Dunnock females are quite frankly sluts, so male dunnocks frequently have to physically remove the sperm of other males before mating. This particular sexual practice is known as felching, for anyone who was interested. And mallards are one of the few animal species who routinely practice gang-rape; female mallards have no choice about which male they mate with or even how many they mate with.

We also learned that more than half of all reed bunting chicks are illegitimate, i.e. the offspring of some random male rather than the female's mate - this happens a lot; 18% of all bluetit chicks are bastards too, as well as various other statistics I don't recall.

Last year we learned about a particular species of penguin (the name escapes me), the females of which prostitute themselves to random males in exchange for nesting material.

So let's look at bees now, in particular the honey bee since that's about the only species I remember in any detail. The male's penis is about a quarter of his entire body mass, and a twisted shape. As he penetrates the female his abdomen is literally turned inside out; he falls away, castrated and dying, leaving his penis lodged inside the female who is now physically incapable of mating again, usually permanently. Ouch.

Clearly, these shining examples of sexual virtue are the perfect example to set our children. Not.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

o_O;

Someone threw an avocado through Robbie's window at about five o'clock this morning. Possibly the most random event possible.