The Stickleback

Today I awoke to the story of the Stickleback.  That tiny fish which we as lads and before you accuse me of being sexist, it was mainly lads who would trail the ponds and streams to catch these little fish, pop them into a jam jar to take home or at the end of the day or pour back into the stream.
Following from my plea to watch, with ever closer attention that 'political parasite', the member from Maldon who has his sights on the BBC I was intrigued to begin my day listening to the life of the humble Stickleback.  Amongst other things I learnt that about 20% of these fish carry a parasite in them which often grows to a size equalling the weight of the fish in which it lives. Although the parasite, a type of ring worm is a hermaphrodite and breeds with itself, it needs the body of a bird to fulfil its own cycle and therefore it alters the fishes colouration and makes the fish sluggish to enable the bird to catch and eat the fish ensuring the parasite can prosper.
The dramatic script by which nature evolves is indeed Machiavellian.
The male Stickleback is a handsome chap having distinctive colouring by which to attract the female. He builds a nest in the gravel of the stream or pond and then begins the fickle job of enticing her into the nest to lay her eggs, which he promptly fertilises. She then scarpers leaving him to care for the eggs and the offspring until they are ready to leave the nest by which time, after a year of slaving over the stove, it is time to die.
Now if I were a misogynist I would point out, the male is not 'just for show' but carries virtually all the burden. He has to compete with his mates for the hand of his chosen, he has to swim through hoops to attract her attention, lead her into his specially decorated bungalow, built I might say working his fins to the bone all for the joy of procreation with a 'one off' orgasm. She, bless her, then takes off to  let him to pick up the pieces of their wild one night stand in the firm knowledge that he will protects the kids until it is time to "kick his clogs" !!
It says something of Homo sapiens  that the male seems to have turned nature on its head and he has become the "scarperer".
Only the BBC could have enticed and teased, at such an early hour, the story of another of life's miracles to marvel and comment on. Not only is it an example of the way some people devote their own life to painstaking research, in this case the fishy world of ichthyology, but even more to the point, an example of the rich varied, "something for everyone"  content of this working marvel, the BBC which we take for granted at our peril.