i read that apart from a swan no other birds have a penis so how do they mate ?

Answer 1

During bird breeding season, in response to hormones from the pituitary gland , the male's testes become several hundred times larger than normal to produce sperm, with the left testis usually larger. The female bird's ovaries also enlarge during breeding season to produce the ovum.

In birds, an ovum is fertilized in the female bird's oviduct by a sperm cell from the male bird. Once fertilized, the ovum becomes the nucleus of the egg. The egg, that has its own food source, the yolk, will be laid by the female into her nest, incubated, and then the baby bird will hatch.

But how does the sperm from the male bird get into the female? How can they have intercourse without any external male organs, such as a penis? The male's sperm, produced in the testes, passes to the cloaca where it is stored until copulation (act of sex). The female also has a cloaca that leads from the ovaries. The female bird unfans her tail, moves it to one side while the male climbs up onto her back or gets close to her. Their cloacas are pressed together and the sperm moves from the male to the female. This act is called a cloacal kiss.

The sperm is stored by the female for at least a week, in some species over a hundred days. Then as each ovum from the ovary moves into the oviduct, it gets fertilized with the stored sperm, producing a clutch of many eggs, all with the sperm from that one cloacal kiss.

There are a few species of birds where the males do possess a retractable penis that can be pulled back into the bird. These birds include ostriches, cassowaries, kiwis, swans, geese, and ducks. Since waterfowl sometimes make love while in the lake or pond, the penis helps ensure that the sperm is not washed away by the water.

Sperm can be transferred from male cloaca to the female in a blink of an eye - less than a second. Some birds seem to want to linger longer though, sometimes having sex for more than an hour! And, although it is not necessary to copulate frequently since the sperm is stored within the female, remember those hormones are still making the birds excited. Many pairs of birds will mate numerous times within a few days.

Answer 2

I don't think the source you read is completely right... when we kept ducks, I could tell which one the daddy duck was. If you weren't going to say he had a penis, I don't know what you were going to call it... apart from big. Him, the cockerels, the wild birds in the trees, they didn't seem to be having any trouble... someone should have told them they didn't have penises

Maybe there's a strict biological distinction? They probably just have another word to describe bird penii, maybe the swan's the only one which looks like a mammal's penis and that's why they may the distinction....

Man, I hope no Biology Phd answers this question too, I'm going to look like a fool next to them if everything I said is just wrong! All the same, it's what I believe to be true. Damn! That guy up there talking about the cloaca! But I saw the daddy duck with a penis! Looked like a damned big penis to me! Maybe he took it from a swan? Or maybe it's my mind at work.... No, I read a little more, ducks have retractable penises, and that's what I saw, it's okay...

Answer 3

Some sort of genitals are there in most of the birds

Answer 4

They put their cloacas in contact. Still rather mysterious, though.