FlamingText

Desperate Penguin Housewives

"A kiss may be grand but it won't pay the rental
on your humble flat, or help you at the automat."

  Yes, square-cut or pear-shaped, these rocks don't lose their shape -- when Marilyn sang those lines in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" the rocks to which she was referring were diamonds, but in the world of Adelie penguins it's just plain old rocks that are a girl's best friend. Pebble-sized nesting rocks, to be specific. In their nesting grounds amid the frozen wastes of Antarctica, a warm season can spell disaster for the pending generation of hatchlings, flooding the nest with frigid water and drowning them before they ever leave the shell. A solid foundation of rocks helps lift the eggs above the perilous slurry of ice-melt and guano that in warm years threatens to swamp the nests, but of course with as many as a half-million penguins vying for space in locations such as Ross Island, such rocks can be hard to come by. Following the universal economic law of supply and demand, this drives the market value of nesting rocks up and up, leading some enterprising penguin females to resort to devious methods of acquiring the precious stones. Namely, turning tricks.

  As famously documented in this summer’s surprise hit movie March of the Penguins, mother and father penguins must work cooperatively to ensure the survival of their brood in the harsh conditions of Antarctica, prompting some conservative pundits to applaud the movie for its positive portrayal of monogamy and traditional family values. One partner must guard the nest and sit on the eggs while the other forages for food and for those precious nest-building rocks. But, as observed by University of Sheffield zoologist Fiona Hunter and others in extensive field studies, there is more than one way to line a nest. Hunter found that a small percentage of rock-hungry females circumvented the dangers and tedium of the traditional methods of rock-gathering, which involve either wandering far and wide in search of unclaimed rocks (boring!) or stealing them from the neighbors (fun, but dangerous!) and instead opted to engage in a form of sexual commerce once thought to be the exclusive domain of humans. A female would approach an unmated male occupying a nest lined with stones (presumably constructed as an enticement to eligible females) and initiate courtship behavior, standing a ways off from the male and giving him the eye. The male would respond with the traditional sidelong glance and bowed head before moving off the nest and allowing her to take her place there. Once so ensconced, she would lay face down on the nest, signaling her readiness to mate. The male would then mount her. After the deed was done, the female picked up a stone with her beak and went back to her own nest, in some cases returning as many as ten times to pick up additional stones after the initial transaction, unimpeded in these further sorties by the sated male.

  Now, I may not be an economist or a Republican, but I like to think I understand the basic idea of supply and demand. To whit, when increased demand encounters a static supply it drives the economic value of the supply side of the equation upwards. And since, thanks to global climate trends (notice I didn’t say “global warming?” I don’t want to venture onto the thin, thin ice of junk science here, people. Let’s just say “the opposite of global cooling”), the arctic and Antarctic ice shelves have been melting away at a rate that climatologists tend to describe in terms such as “Holy crap!” and “Wasn’t there a whole ice-cap here just a year or two ago?”, there are likely to be more unseasonably warm years for the penguins’ Antarctic nesting grounds, ergo more market demand for nest rocks to elevate the Adelie eggs above the ice-melt and guano trickling down onto their eggs, that means greater economic pressure for female penguins to resort to selling their bodies in exchange for precious, precious rocks that help secure a greater chance of survival for their helpless fertilized eggs. That’s right. Mark my words. Global climate change will drive more and more penguin wives into prostitution.

Hey kids! Did you know that one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases is automobile emissions? It’s true! And did you also know that the more fuel an automobile burns, the more greenhouse gases it releases? That means that the Ford OverCompensator 4-Wheel Drive SUV parked out in your driveway warms up the atmosphere as much as two sedans, three motorcycles, or four scooters would traveling the same distance! And the warmer the Earth gets, the more penguin mommies are going to be forced to trade sexual favors for rocks! Isn’t that terrible?

Kids, you know that voice you use when you really, really really want something and Mommy and Daddy won't get it for you? You know the voice I’m talking about – the one you use when you’re in the store and they’re acting like they’re not going to buy you that plush stuffed penguin that you asked for but then you realize that they just need proper motivation and so you use that special high-pitched voice and ask for it several times in a row, getting a little bit louder every time until finally they break down and just give you what you want so you’ll stop? Right, that voice. That’s the voice I want you to use when you ask this question, while sitting down to dinner tonight at the dinner table:

“Daddy, why do you have to drive that giant car to work every day even though you’re the only one in the car and big cars like yours warm up the planet and force penguin mommies to do it with penguins who aren’t their husbands just so they can get some rocks? Why, Daddy, why? Why???”

Then start crying. I know your parents call this “whining,” but it’s for a good cause. Penguins! Cute, lovable, monogamous penguins!

Take that, Michael Medved! Oh, and by the way, nice mustache.

Posted by flamingbanjo at October 5, 2005 09:49 AM