(Sun, 27 Dec 2009 14:34:59 -0500)
The natural home for influenza viruses is aquatic waterfowl, including ducks and geese (anseriformes). So I’ve read a fair amount about swabbing the claocae (rectums) of these animals as part of avian influenza surveillance. Recently it has been suggested that avian influenza is actually a sexually transmitted disease, so the question of anseriform sex is now on the agenda. It’s not just consensual sex. It turns out that male ducks and geese haven’t heard that rape (aka forced copulation) is frowned up in civilized society and, unusual among birds, they go in for it in a big way. Big in lots of ways. Because ducks seem to have prodigiously large penises. I was reading about a just published paper on duck penises and vaginas and decided to Google the subject and came upon a great post from scibling, Darren Naish at Tetropod Zoology:
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