{"id":9390,"date":"2017-09-20T05:12:52","date_gmt":"2017-09-20T13:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2017\/09\/20\/news-3163\/"},"modified":"2017-09-20T05:12:52","modified_gmt":"2017-09-20T13:12:52","slug":"news-3163","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2017\/09\/20\/news-3163\/","title":{"rendered":"Being a Male Duck Is One Big Dick Measuring Contest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Credit to Author: Lisa Cumming| Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2017 04:01:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There are only a few species of birds that have penises. Ducks, which are among them, have earned a reputation for having some of the most <a href=\"https:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/nze9yg\/a-comprehensive-guide-to-the-weirdest-sex-in-nature\">bizarre genitalia<\/a> of all\u2014corkscrew-shaped penises and complex vaginas with dead ends and false passages. Some duck penises are relatively massive. A group from Alaska recorded a ruddy duck with a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/science\/articles\/2001\/09\/14\/366856.htm\" target=\"_blank\">42 cm long penis<\/a>, much longer than the bird itself, duck penis expert Patricia Brennan recently told me over the phone.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article__media\"><picture class=\"article__image\"><source media=\"(max-width: 25em)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/_uncategorized\/1505854395780-ruddy-duck.jpeg?resize=400:*, https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/_uncategorized\/1505854395780-ruddy-duck.jpeg?resize=600:* 2x\"><source media=\"(max-width: 40.625em)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/_uncategorized\/1505854395780-ruddy-duck.jpeg?resize=650:*, https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/_uncategorized\/1505854395780-ruddy-duck.jpeg?resize=975:* 2x\"><source media=\"(max-width: 53.125em)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/_uncategorized\/1505854395780-ruddy-duck.jpeg?resize=850:*, https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/_uncategorized\/1505854395780-ruddy-duck.jpeg?resize=1275:* 2x\"><source media=\"(min-width: 53.125em)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/_uncategorized\/1505854395780-ruddy-duck.jpeg?resize=960:*\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/_uncategorized\/1505854395780-ruddy-duck.jpeg\" alt=\"\"><\/picture>\n<div class=\"article__image-caption\">A male ruddy duck. Image: P. Brennan<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Brennan is lead author on a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bioone.org\/doi\/full\/10.1642\/AUK-17-114.1\" target=\"_blank\">new study<\/a> from <i> The Auk: Ornithological Advances<\/i> looking at whether a duck&#8217;s social environment impacts the growth and ultimate size of its penis. The study found that social environment does play a part in how long these birds&#8217; penises grow, suggesting that some can grow larger dicks to compete with other males.<\/p>\n<p>Brennan, a visiting lecturer of biological sciences at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, <a href=\"http:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosone\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pone.0000418\" target=\"_blank\">found in earlier research<\/a> that male and female duck genitalia have coevolved. You see, female ducks have these very complex vaginas in response to the male ducks forcing themselves on them. In what&#8217;s been called a sexual arms race, male ducks have developed long, spiral-shaped penises to get around the challenges of tricky duck vaginas. <\/p>\n<p>Duck genitals are kept inside-out in a sack inside their bodies. The male duck thrusts it outwards whenever he feels the moment is right. Brennan <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/8336437\" target=\"_blank\">caught the action on video<\/a> during earlier research. (It&#8217;s a must watch.)<\/p>\n<div data-iframely-id=\"OPTPNwg\" class=\"article__embed article__embed--iframely\">\n<div style=\"left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 80%;\" data-iframely-smart-iframe=\"true\"><iframe  src= width=\"100%\" height=\"420\" frameborder=\"0\" ><\/iframe> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><i>Video: <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/8336437\" target=\"_blank\">Science News\/Vimeo<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This co-evolution is actually the result of an arms race over the control of reproduction, because male ducks force females to copulate and females don&#8217;t like it at all,&#8221; Brennan said. &#8220;So [the females] have evolved this anatomy that allows them to prevent males, essentially, from being successful during these forced inseminations.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"article__pull-quote\">&#8220;They&#8217;re at the evolutionary end of how far you can push a penis&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Brennan&#8217;s new paper focuses on what conditions drive penis size. She looked at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ducks.ca\/species\/ruddy-duck\/\" target=\"_blank\">ruddy duck, which is known to be very promiscuous,<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ducks.ca\/species\/lesser-scaup\/\" target=\"_blank\">lesser scaup<\/a>, which has a smaller penis and forms seasonal pair bonds. She observed both groups over two years. <\/p>\n<p>Brennan hypothesized that a larger penis might evolve in response to female ducks&#8217; preference. &#8220;Maybe the females love big penises because they indicate something about the males,&#8221; she said. &#8220;But I already sort of knew that that wasn&#8217;t going to be likely, because of these forced copulations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The other option, she thought, is that longer penises give males an edge when they&#8217;re competing against other males for the same mating partner. In that case, it would be more about males showboating and showing off. &#8220;A male [with] a longer penis can deposit sperm a little farther inside the female,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Brennan separated both species of duck into several different groups. Lesser scaup male ducks in a group with fewer females grew longer penises (on average) than males who evenly paired with the females.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sperm competition and male-male competition do favour a longer penis,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Ruddy ducks are very horny ducks with extremely long penises to start off with. Brennan thought that even if she put these males in competition with other males, they wouldn&#8217;t be able to grow a longer member because their penises are already so extreme. &#8220;They&#8217;re at the evolutionary end of how far you can push a penis,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__blockquote\"><b> Read More: <\/b><b><a href=\"https:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/nze9yg\/a-comprehensive-guide-to-the-weirdest-sex-in-nature\">The Weirdest, Most Twisted Sex in Nature<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<p>In this group, dominant males were physically intimidating the smaller ducks. Brennan found that, as a result, some of the smaller ruddy ducks showed a reproductive delay, and took a longer time to reach reproductive maturation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s beating up everybody else so they can&#8217;t quite grow a penis as long as they normally would,&#8221; she said, explaining that the males would rush to peck any other smaller males that display to females. &#8220;So you have a bunch of males that are trying to grow these penises, and then the dominant male is trying to prevent them from doing so.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>That came as a surprise. &#8220;The reproductive suppression of dominant males is known in some [mammal] species, but in birds we didn&#8217;t really have an evidence that this could happen.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Brennan plans to continue studying duck penises. &#8220;It&#8217;s a cool example of yet another way in which evolution can result in elaborate genitalia,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Individuals have the ability to be very strategic about when they&#8217;re going to grow longer penises or shorter penises.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p><b> <i> Get six of our favorite Motherboard stories every day <\/i><\/b><b> <i> <a href=\"http:\/\/motherboard.club\/\" target=\"_blank\">by signing up for our newsletter.<\/a><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/43awjg\/being-a-male-duck-is-one-big-dick-measuring-contest\" target=\"bwo\" >https:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/en_us\/rss<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/articles\/59c16de17045446b4ef861a6\/lede\/1505913140712-eenden.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Credit to Author: Lisa Cumming| Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2017 04:01:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ducks are known for their bizarre corkscrew penises and complex vaginas. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[10643,13328,10378],"tags":[6868,14925,13317,14924,14931,14927,13775,14929,14930,14926,13298,14928,1953,9191],"class_list":["post-9390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-independent","category-motherboard","category-security","tag-animals","tag-corkscrew","tag-discoveries","tag-ducks","tag-giant-penis","tag-mating","tag-penis","tag-penis-size","tag-penis-size-acceptance","tag-penises","tag-read","tag-reproduction","tag-sex","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}