All nematodes look alike

(another prof quote =D)

Have you ever seen anything more sad than a bald duck? I, in my relatively unmelodramatic and uninteresting (as anyone who reads this weblog can vouch for) life, certainly haven't. In fact, I didn't even know that such pathos existed in this world. But on Tuesday the fully cruel nature of our world was exposed to me.

I've decided to shift my "office" from the quad to the arboretum. The arboretum is vastly superior to the quad for quite a few reasons. There's more shade, which is extremely important now that the days of super-100 degree temperatures are upon us. There are fewer people. Also a big plus. I don't know what it is with the quad. It's a vast expanse of grass. And yet there are always those people that feel the need to sit unnaturally close to me (within 3 feet!) despite the fact that there are any number of equally good spots that aren't within a certain radius of other people (especially myself). And there always seems to be something freaky going on on the quad these days, while the arboretum is refreshingly free of such events. Also the arboretum has a duck pond! There's been an egret there this week! I love egrets!

So, I was eating lunch and reading in my "office" on Tuesday when a pair of ducks flapped over and settled down next to me. The female sported a conspicuous lack of feathers on the back of her head. It looked like male-pattern baldness. But on a female duck! What on earth could cause that?! This vision saddened me greatly.

But I became even more sad when my esteemed ecological colleagues told me what causes female duck baldness. These ducks have been raped. Apparently mating is not a pleasant occupation for female ducks. The males chase them all over the place (and who can blame them for running away? I would too!), and when they've finally caught them, they bite onto the backs of their head to keep them there while they brutalize them. That's why they have no feathers there.

How intensely sad! It doesn't seem like an evolutionarily stable strategy to me either. Shouldn't evolution try to promote mutually pleasing reproductive events? One would think... Oh well. I'll leave that question to be answered by others. I study plants. Plants don't seem to show either intensely pleasurable orgasms or violent, brutal rapes. Although, I'm sure they noticed somewhat the large-scale emasculations carried out by Gregor Mendel... Those monks!