What does it take to turn on a turkey?

The Manila Times reports on the science behind male turkey sexuality.

Pennsylvania State University’s Martin Schein and Edgar Hale discovered that male turkeys, when placed in a room with a lifelike model of a female turkey, mated with the surrogate as eagerly as they would the real thing.

Schein and Hale experimented to see what was the minimum sexual stimulus, gradually removing parts from the model one by one until the male bird finally lost interest.

“Tail, feet and wings—Schein and Hale removed them all, but still the clueless bird waddled up to the model, let out an amorous gobble and tried to do his thing,” said writer Alex Boese for New Scientist.

“Finally, only a head on a stick remained. The male turkey was still keen. In fact, it preferred a head on a stick to a headless body.”

posted by Purp at 12:46 PM

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