This simply HAS to have been deliberate!

I'm still chortling over this BBC report.

Scientists believe they have discovered the origin of copulation.

An international team of researchers says a fish ... is the first-known animal to stop reproducing by spawning and instead mate by having sex.

The primitive bony fish, which was about 8cm long, lived in ancient lakes about 385 million years ago in what is now Scotland.

Lead author Prof John Long, from Flinders University in Australia, said: "We have defined the very point in evolution where the origin of internal fertilisation in all animals began.

"That is a really big step."

Prof Long added that the discovery was made as he was looking through a box of ancient fish fossils.

He noticed that one of the ... specimens had an odd L-shaped appendage. Further investigation revealed that this was the male fish's genitals.

. . .

Constrained by their anatomy, the fish probably had to mate side by side.

"They couldn't have done it in a 'missionary position'," said Prof Long. "The very first act of copulation was done sideways, square-dance style."

There's more at the link.

That's all well and good;  but then one reads the scientific name of the fish concerned.  It's . . . wait for it . . . Microbrachius dicki.

Dicki?  For the first copulating fish?  Yeah, go on;  tell me that name's just coincidental . . .




Peter