The academics say that there were no breaks in the egg
Biologists at the University of Manchester want help in cracking their
"miracle" discovery of three fish inside a sealed egg.
The group found the duck egg in a small pond on a field trip to the French
Alps and noticed something moving inside it.
When they cracked open the shell, three live minnows were inside.
They have enlisted the help of other experts, but despite their extensive
combined knowledge, the biologists admit they are "baffled".
Dr Matthew Cobb, a lecturer in animal behaviour at the university, said:
"As 21st century scientists rather than 17th century antiquarians we think
it's unlikely this represents a hitherto unknown mode of fish reproduction.
Predatory attack
"Perhaps the egg fell into the pond following some kind of predatory attack
but we're baffled as to how the minnows got to be inside.
"Certainly, we didn't see any crack in the egg." Dr Cobb and his colleague,
Henry McGhie, head of natural sciences at the Manchester Museum, have
written to the New Scientist magazine in the hope readers will help solve
the mystery. Minnows are small freshwater fish, often used as bait by
anglers.
____________________ My Life is like a porno-Without the sex-Just the weird music
dead-cell
Fanatic
Posts: 344 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 30/9/2006 at 03:29 PM
Beg your pardon, but the answer to this question is far simpler and far
stranger.
Reading your quick exert of the article a memory came to mind… something
urban mythic, but I believe I ran across the story on the Darwin Awards. A
woman whom for some reason; got her jollies out of slowly boiling lobster
or other crustacean, then devouring them; until one night when ungodly
stomach cramps, and severe diarrhea claimed the woman’s life. Apparently
the woman had called for medical help, but her death was too sudden. At any
rate the medical help found her dead hugging the toilet in a pool of
squirming excretions. Yes, squirming; for in her excrements were tiny newly
hatched arthropods… So what does this have to do with fish in a duck’s egg,
well here are some of my theories:
Scenario 1- Female duck eats fertilized female mino; mino’s eggs somehow
escape digestion process and wind up at the end of the tour in the duck’s
cloacae where the eggs are ushered or pushed by Donald’s pecker into her
reproductive ducts. Presto! Fish eggs get enclosed in a duck egg.
Scenario 2- inter-species rape. It happens.
Scenario 3- “Electronic” genetic scrambling (high-frequency biological
linking), Dr. Tsian Kanchen at it again.
Scenario 4- damn ball lightning.
Scenario 5- bio-genesis.
My vote's for scenario 1
____________________ co-worker: "Your gay!?"
myself: "Didn't you see my rainbow pin?"
co-worker: "I just thought you liked skettles."
-(yes, it actually happened to me)
Sardonic-Pain
Fanatic
Posts: 248 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 30/9/2006 at 03:49 PM
You know D.C. I love you...
This is my thought
If I the egg fell into slightly acidic water along where minnows eggs or
very small minnows may have been and perhaps some sort of osmosis occured
but not to the point where the egg shell was disolved. Unlike a chicken egg
a duck egg probably has a different texture (at least I think they do).
I think back to Bill Nye the Science Guy I think he did a thing where he
used Soda and a Chicken egg to do an expiriment on osmosis. If you leave an
egg in soda long enough the shell softens and eventually dissolves
entirely.
If the egg were in some slightly acidic water (somehow, or perhaps bacteria
was involved) then it may of become pourus and the minnow eggs end up
inside or something
____________________ My Life is like a porno-Without the sex-Just the weird music