Boffin honoured for necrophile gay duck paper
By Lester Haines
Published Wednesday 9th March 2005 14:02 GMT
A Dutch researcher has been honoured for his illuminating research into necrophiliac gay ducks - a hitherto unprobed side of animal behaviour which rather eclipses recent work on homosexual sheep and stroppy cows.
According to the Guardian, Kees Moeliker's paper "The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard anas platyrhynchos" gives humanity the first insight into the dark, dark world of ducks. He was apparently sitting in his office in the Natuurmuseum Rotterdam when a rather daffy duck impacted with his window. Moeliker takes up the story:
I went downstairs immediately to see if the window was damaged, and saw a drake mallard (anas platyrhynchos) lying motionless on its belly in the sand, two metres outside the facade. The unfortunate duck apparently had hit the building in full flight at a height of about three metres from the ground. Next to the obviously dead duck, another male mallard (in full adult plumage without any visible traces of moult) was present. He forcibly picked into the back, the base of the bill and mostly into the back of the head of the dead mallard for about two minutes, then mounted the corpse and started to copulate, with great force, almost continuously picking the side of the head.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/09/gay_duck_honour/
By Lester Haines
Published Wednesday 9th March 2005 14:02 GMT
A Dutch researcher has been honoured for his illuminating research into necrophiliac gay ducks - a hitherto unprobed side of animal behaviour which rather eclipses recent work on homosexual sheep and stroppy cows.
According to the Guardian, Kees Moeliker's paper "The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard anas platyrhynchos" gives humanity the first insight into the dark, dark world of ducks. He was apparently sitting in his office in the Natuurmuseum Rotterdam when a rather daffy duck impacted with his window. Moeliker takes up the story:
I went downstairs immediately to see if the window was damaged, and saw a drake mallard (anas platyrhynchos) lying motionless on its belly in the sand, two metres outside the facade. The unfortunate duck apparently had hit the building in full flight at a height of about three metres from the ground. Next to the obviously dead duck, another male mallard (in full adult plumage without any visible traces of moult) was present. He forcibly picked into the back, the base of the bill and mostly into the back of the head of the dead mallard for about two minutes, then mounted the corpse and started to copulate, with great force, almost continuously picking the side of the head.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/09/gay_duck_honour/
