Archive for August 15th, 2007
Tits In No Danger of Getting Own Cartoon
Countless movies and documentaries are boringly dedicated to the apparently highly-moral lives of penguins.
Why not European penduline tits then?
Here’s why…from this week’s The Economist:
[…] both males and females [of the European penduline tit or Remiz pendulinus] abandon their offspring, a strategy that, perversely, increases the number of chicks they have overall […] in between 30% and 40% of cases both parents desert the clutch […] both males and females can mate and lay eggs with up to seven different partners in one season
I’d say, the chances of any producer selecting Remiz Pendulinus as the inspiration for next big-budget cartoon, are pretty much zero…
ps More on low-morality birds: Promiscuous Mama Birds Bank on ‘Nannies’