Library: Smurfette's secret

Smurfette's secret by Harry Fox It's bothered me for years ... ... Im talking about the Smurfs, of course. You know those little blue people on TV.. Theyre not normal people, are they? I mean, besides being blue and all. Theres something different about them. Think about it: There is ONE, count her, ONE female in the whole bunch. All the rest are male. There is ONE, count him, ONE, adult male in the whole bunch. Im not exactly a scientist, but I do have some science training. And you dont really have to have much to see that, even though they look like little blue people, theres some kind of profoundly different life cycle going on there. And I think Ive figured it out. Smurfette, as the one female, is obviously the matriarchal link to the next generation. Papa Smurf, as the one elder male, is obviously the patriarchal link to the previous generation. But thats just the beginning. Ask yourself: Why are there NO other elder males? Why are there NO other females? Heres how it has to work: Every generation, there are a lot of males born, but only one female. This female carries the responsibility of producing the offspring for the next generation, and she has to do this by mating with one of the males. Speaking evolutionarily, that male is probably not Papa Smurf. Considering the tribal nature of the Smurfs, its likely that Papa Smurf is the male parent of all of them just as all the younger male Smurfs are likely his sons, Smurfette is likely his own daughter. There must be some kind of evolutionary mechanism for preventing him from mating with Smurfette. It may be merely that he is too old to compete for her hand. And I think competition is the key word here. What were looking at, with a huge number of males, presumably intact, and one female, presumably fertile, is some sort to natural selection process to ensure that only the fittest male is allowed to mate with her. Considering that they have their simple adventures on real, live television, and yet never display any prurient interest in each other, I think their mating behavior is unlikely to come on gradually, as it does in adolescent humans. And they appear equally likely or unlikely, in this case to become the eventual male parent. Happy Smurf is perpetually in a good mood, for instance, and Handy Smurf is skilled at fixing things, but there is no Horny Smurf or Big Studly Smurf or Snorty Goat Smurf. The lot of them are as asexual as apples, and no hint of reproductive matters is revealed in any of their televised adventures. No, I think the mating urge is triggered, at some point, suddenly and simultaneously in every living Smurf. I imagine it happening like this: Smurfette gradually matures along with her protective male siblings until, one day, perhaps quite suddenly, she becomes ready to mate. Considering standard models of reproduction in the natural world, its likely she begins emitting a pheromone that triggers the mating impulse in the males. That mating impulse is likely paralleled by aggressive behavior: the males might squabble at first, in their mild way, but soon give way to more and more aggressive displays. Over the course of days or weeks or perhaps only hours the pitch of these displays increases until it finally reaches the level of deadly force. The males literally fall into murderous combat and begin to kill each other off. Finally there is one male left, and he, victorious, mates with Smurfette. He becomes the new Papa Smurf. As for the OLD Papa Smurf again, he might be no less susceptible to the pheromonal trigger, but he would obviously succumb early on to attacks from his younger, more virile male offspring. Yet something mysterious seems to happen to Smurfette too. All the available evidence indicates she has no part in the doings of that next generation. What Im guessing, from the numerous clues given by the Smurf social and biological structure, is that Smurfette dies in the act of reproduction. Gravid with eggs or placental offspring, I imagine Smurfette retiring to a burrow or nest and producing her clutch of next-generation Smurfs, scores or perhaps even hundreds of them. The burrow scenario is, I think, necessary, given the fact of large numbers of dead male Smurfs, which would be certain to attract carrion eaters from far and wide. Its immaterial whether the hatchlings crawl over her comatose body and a devour her from the outside, or whether they hatch inside her and eat their way out. Either scenario seems equally plausible, and only further research could determine the actual method by which Smurfette vanishes after the birthing. Regardless, the most likely scenario, given the available facts, is that the new generation is launched safely and healthily on its way by using Smurfette as a food source. Guarded by the vigilant new Papa Smurf, the Smurflings stay underground for a while, eating and growing, until they are ready to enter the light of day and begin to enjoy the tutelage and guardianship of their new Papa. There is also certainly room to entertain the possibility of genetic contributions from other Smurf tribes. This would add an extra element of outcross vigor to the selection process, contributing valuable genetic material from outside the home tribe, and thus diminishing the factor of inbreeding, but the actual mechanism would require extensive study. Theres considerable room for argument on this basic reproductive scenario, and there are no doubt various variations that would seem plausible. Considering the relative sentience of the Smurfs, there may even be some element of conscious choice in the whole thing. Imagine Papa Smurf as a sort of proctor, for instance, who tests the young males one at a time for evolutionarily sound qualities, perhaps biting the testicles off the ones who fail to make the grade, so that eventually there is only a very small pool of viable male mates for Smurfette. And of course, finally, there must be some explanation for the troublesome detail of Baby Smurf. For myself, I think this question can be simply answered by assuming Baby Smurf is not so much a baby as a runt perhapsa cast too far by the explosive hatching of the initial egg mass to get back in time to gulp a few bloody mouthfuls of Smurfettes nutritious body. .

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Library: Smurfette's secret