0:00:00.389,0:00:03.629 This is the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam, 0:00:03.629,0:00:06.189 where I work as a curator. 0:00:06.189,0:00:09.237 It's my job to make sure the collection stays okay, 0:00:09.237,0:00:11.213 and that it grows, 0:00:11.213,0:00:16.565 and basically it means I collect dead animals. 0:00:16.565,0:00:18.956 Back in 1995, 0:00:18.956,0:00:23.452 we got a new wing next to the museum. 0:00:23.452,0:00:25.593 It was made of glass, 0:00:25.593,0:00:31.099 and this building really helped me to do my job good. 0:00:31.099,0:00:35.225 The building was a true bird-killer. 0:00:35.225,0:00:37.803 You may know that birds don't understand 0:00:37.803,0:00:40.965 the concept of glass. They don't see it, 0:00:40.965,0:00:44.571 so they fly into the windows and get killed. 0:00:44.571,0:00:46.811 The only thing I had to do was go out, 0:00:46.811,0:00:50.868 pick them up, and have them stuffed for the collection. 0:00:50.868,0:00:53.986 (Laughter) 0:00:53.986,0:00:55.765 And in those days, 0:00:55.765,0:00:59.203 I developed an ear to identify birds 0:00:59.203,0:01:04.789 just by the sound of the bangs they made against the glass. 0:01:04.789,0:01:08.771 And it was on June 5, 1995, 0:01:08.771,0:01:12.537 that I heard a loud bang against the glass 0:01:12.537,0:01:17.147 that changed my life and ended that of a duck. 0:01:17.147,0:01:22.942 And this is what I saw when I looked out of the window. 0:01:22.942,0:01:26.126 This is the dead duck. It flew against the window. 0:01:26.126,0:01:27.820 It's laying dead on its belly. 0:01:27.820,0:01:31.175 But next to the dead duck is a live duck, 0:01:31.175,0:01:33.489 and please pay attention. 0:01:33.489,0:01:36.979 Both are of the male sex. 0:01:38.410,0:01:41.083 And then this happened. 0:01:41.083,0:01:43.789 The live duck mounted the dead duck, 0:01:43.789,0:01:46.452 and started to copulate. 0:01:46.452,0:01:49.177 Well, I'm a biologist. I'm an ornithologist. 0:01:49.177,0:01:51.925 I said, "Something's wrong here." 0:01:51.925,0:01:57.897 One is dead, one is alive. That must be necrophilia. 0:01:57.897,0:02:00.779 I look. Both are of the male sex. 0:02:00.779,0:02:05.418 Homosexual necrophilia. 0:02:05.418,0:02:10.463 So I -- (Laughter) 0:02:10.463,0:02:13.407 I took my camera, I took my notebook, 0:02:13.407,0:02:18.818 took a chair, and started to observe this behavior. 0:02:18.818,0:02:24.435 After 75 minutes — (Laughter) — 0:02:24.435,0:02:29.244 I had seen enough, and I got hungry, 0:02:29.244,0:02:31.883 and I wanted to go home. 0:02:31.883,0:02:35.443 So I went out, collected the duck, 0:02:35.443,0:02:37.399 and before I put it in the freezer, 0:02:37.399,0:02:42.275 I checked if the victim was indeed of the male sex. 0:02:42.275,0:02:45.883 And here's a rare picture of a duck's penis, 0:02:45.883,0:02:48.924 so it was indeed of the male sex. 0:02:48.924,0:02:52.219 It's a rare picture because there are 10,000 species of birds 0:02:52.219,0:02:56.810 and only 300 possess a penis. 0:02:56.810,0:02:59.197 [The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard Anas platyrhynchos (Aves:Anatidae)] 0:02:59.197,0:03:03.131 I knew I'd seen something special, 0:03:03.131,0:03:08.553 but it took me six years to decide to publish it. 0:03:08.553,0:03:11.408 (Laughter) 0:03:11.408,0:03:14.939 I mean, it's a nice topic for a birthday party 0:03:14.939,0:03:16.678 or at the coffee machine, 0:03:16.678,0:03:19.988 but to share this among your peers is something different. 0:03:19.988,0:03:21.806 I didn't have the framework. 0:03:21.806,0:03:24.851 So after six years, my friends and colleagues urged me to publish, 0:03:24.851,0:03:28.155 so I published "The first case of homosexual necrophilia 0:03:28.155,0:03:29.750 in the mallard." 0:03:29.750,0:03:32.299 And here's the situation again. 0:03:32.299,0:03:34.851 A is my office, 0:03:34.851,0:03:37.315 B is the place where the duck hit the glass, 0:03:37.315,0:03:40.373 and C is from where I watched it. 0:03:40.373,0:03:43.070 And here are the ducks again. 0:03:43.070,0:03:45.077 As you probably know, in science, 0:03:45.077,0:03:47.260 when you write a kind of special paper, 0:03:47.260,0:03:50.259 only six or seven people read it. 0:03:50.259,0:03:54.984 (Laughter) 0:03:56.844,0:03:59.444 But then something good happened. 0:03:59.444,0:04:03.952 I got a phone call from a person called Marc Abrahams, 0:04:03.952,0:04:08.805 and he told me, "You've won a prize with your duck paper: 0:04:08.805,0:04:12.488 the Ig Nobel Prize." 0:04:12.488,0:04:14.402 And the Ig Nobel Prize — 0:04:14.402,0:04:18.819 (Laughter) (Applause) — 0:04:18.819,0:04:20.838 the Ig Nobel Prize honors research 0:04:20.838,0:04:23.915 that first makes people laugh, and then makes them think, 0:04:23.915,0:04:26.699 with the ultimate goal to make more people 0:04:26.699,0:04:29.763 interested in science. 0:04:29.763,0:04:33.899 That's a good thing, so I accepted the prize. 0:04:33.899,0:04:36.588 (Laughter) 0:04:36.588,0:04:40.344 I went -- let me remind you that Marc Abrahams 0:04:40.344,0:04:41.917 didn't call me from Stockholm. 0:04:41.917,0:04:44.070 He called me from Cambridge, Massachusetts. 0:04:44.070,0:04:47.017 So I traveled to Boston, to Cambridge, 0:04:47.017,0:04:50.472 and I went to this wonderful Ig Nobel Prize ceremony 0:04:50.472,0:04:52.825 held at Harvard University, and this ceremony 0:04:52.825,0:04:58.065 is a very nice experience. 0:04:58.065,0:05:01.346 Real Nobel laureates hand you the prize. 0:05:01.346,0:05:02.759 That's the first thing. 0:05:02.759,0:05:05.793 And there are nine other winners who get prizes. 0:05:05.793,0:05:09.169 Here's one of my fellow winners. That's Charles Paxton 0:05:09.169,0:05:14.230 who won the 2000 biology prize for his paper, 0:05:14.230,0:05:18.209 "Courtship behavior of ostriches towards humans 0:05:18.209,0:05:20.645 under farming conditions in Britain." 0:05:20.645,0:05:24.925 (Laughter) 0:05:24.925,0:05:28.081 And I think there are one or two more 0:05:28.081,0:05:31.002 Ig Nobel Prize winners in this room. 0:05:31.002,0:05:34.729 Dan, where are you? Dan Ariely? 0:05:34.729,0:05:36.651 Applause for Dan. 0:05:36.651,0:05:39.953 (Applause) 0:05:39.953,0:05:43.697 Dan won his prize in medicine 0:05:43.697,0:05:47.872 for demonstrating that high-priced fake medicine 0:05:47.872,0:05:50.729 works better than low-priced fake medicine. 0:05:50.729,0:05:55.000 (Laughter) 0:05:55.000,0:05:57.818 So here's my one minute of fame, 0:05:57.818,0:06:02.295 my acceptance speech, 0:06:02.295,0:06:04.508 and here's the duck. 0:06:04.508,0:06:09.430 This is its first time on the U.S. West Coast. 0:06:09.430,0:06:12.104 I'm going to pass it around. 0:06:12.104,0:06:17.393 (Laughter) 0:06:17.393,0:06:18.870 Yeah? 0:06:18.870,0:06:20.179 You can pass it around. 0:06:20.179,0:06:22.560 Please note it's a museum specimen, 0:06:22.560,0:06:27.978 but there's no chance you'll get the avian flu. 0:06:27.978,0:06:31.984 After winning this prize, my life changed. 0:06:31.984,0:06:34.114 In the first place, people started to send me 0:06:34.114,0:06:37.661 all kinds of duck-related things, 0:06:37.661,0:06:40.713 and I got a real nice collection. 0:06:40.713,0:06:43.040 (Laughter) 0:06:43.040,0:06:49.704 More importantly, 0:06:49.704,0:06:53.776 people started to send me their observations 0:06:53.776,0:06:56.310 of remarkable animal behavior, 0:06:56.310,0:06:59.482 and believe me, if there's an animal misbehaving on this planet, 0:06:59.482,0:07:01.183 I know about it. 0:07:01.183,0:07:05.531 (Laughter) 0:07:05.531,0:07:10.313 This is a moose. 0:07:10.313,0:07:11.840 It's a moose trying to copulate 0:07:11.840,0:07:15.329 with a bronze statue of a bison. 0:07:15.329,0:07:19.122 This is in Montana, 2008. 0:07:19.122,0:07:23.202 This is a frog that tries to copulate with a goldfish. 0:07:23.202,0:07:26.433 This is the Netherlands, 2011. 0:07:26.433,0:07:30.709 These are cane toads in Australia. 0:07:30.709,0:07:31.964 This is roadkill. 0:07:31.964,0:07:35.208 Please note that this is necrophilia. 0:07:35.208,0:07:36.916 It's remarkable: the position. 0:07:36.916,0:07:41.348 The missionary position is very rare in the animal kingdom. 0:07:41.348,0:07:45.532 These are pigeons in Rotterdam. 0:07:47.895,0:07:51.373 Barn swallows in Hong Kong, 2004. 0:07:51.373,0:07:55.137 This is a turkey in Wisconsin 0:07:55.137,0:08:01.216 on the premises of the Ethan Allen juvenile correctional institution. 0:08:01.216,0:08:03.664 It took all day, 0:08:03.664,0:08:08.795 and the prisoners had a great time. 0:08:08.795,0:08:10.727 So what does this mean? 0:08:10.727,0:08:13.975 I mean, the question I ask myself, 0:08:13.975,0:08:15.676 why does this happen in nature? 0:08:15.676,0:08:17.487 Well, what I concluded 0:08:17.487,0:08:19.946 from reviewing all these cases 0:08:19.946,0:08:23.914 is that it is important that this happens 0:08:23.914,0:08:27.961 only when death is instant 0:08:27.961,0:08:30.176 and in a dramatic way 0:08:30.176,0:08:33.113 and in the right position for copulation. 0:08:33.113,0:08:38.771 At least, I thought it was till I got these slides. 0:08:38.771,0:08:41.194 And here you see a dead duck. 0:08:41.194,0:08:43.786 It's been there for three days, 0:08:43.786,0:08:45.840 and it's laying on its back. 0:08:45.840,0:08:51.698 So there goes my theory of necrophilia. 0:08:51.698,0:08:53.088 Another example of the impact 0:08:53.088,0:08:55.081 of glass buildings on the life of birds. 0:08:55.081,0:08:58.426 This is Mad Max, a blackbird who lives in Rotterdam. 0:08:58.426,0:09:04.312 The only thing this bird did was fly against this window 0:09:04.312,0:09:09.264 from 2004 to 2008, day in and day out. 0:09:09.264,0:09:12.213 Here he goes, and here's a short video. 0:09:12.213,0:09:13.935 (Music) (Clunk) 0:09:20.073,0:09:21.257 (Clunk) 0:09:34.377,0:09:36.019 (Clunk) 0:09:44.905,0:09:46.420 (Clunk) 0:09:47.128,0:09:49.175 So what this bird does 0:09:49.175,0:09:53.273 is fight his own image. 0:09:53.273,0:09:55.551 He sees an intruder in his territory, 0:09:55.551,0:09:58.623 and it's coming all the time and he's there, 0:09:58.623,0:10:00.466 so there is no end to it. 0:10:00.466,0:10:03.649 And I thought, in the beginning -- I studied this bird for a couple of years -- 0:10:03.649,0:10:06.895 that, well, shouldn't the brain of this bird be damaged? 0:10:06.895,0:10:09.943 It's not. I show you here some slides, 0:10:09.943,0:10:11.994 some frames from the video, 0:10:11.994,0:10:15.241 and at the last moment before he hits the glass, 0:10:15.241,0:10:17.252 he puts his feet in front, 0:10:17.252,0:10:22.071 and then he bangs against the glass. 0:10:22.071,0:10:26.715 So I'll conclude to invite you all to Dead Duck Day. 0:10:26.715,0:10:29.417 That's on June 5 every year. 0:10:29.417,0:10:32.649 At five minutes to six in the afternoon, 0:10:32.649,0:10:36.563 we come together at the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam, 0:10:36.563,0:10:39.202 the duck comes out of the museum, 0:10:39.202,0:10:41.697 and we try to discuss new ways 0:10:41.697,0:10:45.551 to prevent birds from colliding with windows. 0:10:45.551,0:10:47.986 And as you know, or as you may not know, 0:10:47.986,0:10:50.585 this is one of the major causes of death 0:10:50.585,0:10:52.090 for birds in the world. 0:10:52.090,0:10:54.961 In the U.S. alone, a billion birds die 0:10:54.961,0:10:58.186 in collision with glass buildings. 0:10:58.186,0:11:04.113 And when it's over, we go to a Chinese restaurant 0:11:04.113,0:11:08.871 and we have a six-course duck dinner. 0:11:08.871,0:11:11.721 So I hope to see you 0:11:11.721,0:11:14.776 next year in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 0:11:14.776,0:11:16.123 for Dead Duck Day. 0:11:16.123,0:11:17.394 Thank you. 0:11:17.394,0:11:19.412 (Applause) 0:11:19.412,0:11:25.124 Oh, sorry. 0:11:25.124,0:11:27.233 May I have my duck back, please? 0:11:27.233,0:11:30.341 (Laughter) (Applause) 0:11:30.341,0:11:35.019 Thank you.