Sexy ducks may have fewer STIs

"In 1983, the writer Alan Moore decided to take a break from groundbreaking graphic novels like Watchmen and V for Vendetta. Under the pseudonym Translucia Baboon, he wrote a song called The March of the Sinister Ducks. In it he accuses ducks of, among other things, being 'Nasty and small, undeserving of life', on the grounds that 'They smirk at your hairstyle and sleep with your wife'.

The more we find out about ducks, especially mallards, the more it seems Moore was as ahead of his time with regard to waterfowl as he was in comics. The males will do almost anything for sex, so their lives are a riot of corkscrew penises and forced copulations.

But male mallards are, at least, honest birds. Males with colourful beaks are more attractive to females, and it now seems that beak colour tells the females one of the males' secrets: how good their semen is at killing bacteria."
via New Scientist/read more