Birds
Bird-related topics from the archives of the Mad Science Museum. Arranged in descending chronological order.
Electrified Sheep
& Elephants on Acid
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Categories
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Stimuli Eliciting Sexual Behavior in Turkeys (circa 1965)
 Male turkeys, presented with a lifelike model of a female turkey, will happily try to mate with it as eagerly as they would with the real thing. This observation intrigued Martin Schein and Edgar Hale of the University of Pennsylvania, and made them curious about what the minimal stimulus was that would excite a turkey. They embarked on a series of experiments to find out. This involved removing parts from a turkey model one by one, to determine when the male turkey would eventually lose interest. |