The Riddler Speaks - Casefile #0072 (Patreon)

Anonymous asks: Please give us the birds and the bees story.

(sigh) Alright. If you insist - but honestly, your parents should be telling you these things. I really don't think strangers on the internet are the most appropriate source for this kind of explanation. Birds and egg-laying, vertebrate mammals of the class Avis. Their most classically distinctive feature is their wings - a pair of limbs which have long fascinated mankind. Records going back thousands of years have depicted people attempting to flap like birds in order to fly. An excellent example of how evolution weeds out the exceptionally stupid from the gene pool. Recent discoveries in palaeontology also point to birds being modern day descendants of theropod dinosaurs, disappointing hundreds of Jurassic Park fans who don't want to admit that their beloved Velociraptors were feathered and the size of aggressive turkeys. On the other hand, the act of killing and eating the child of a dinosaur does make Thanksgiving sound much more interesting to today's bored students. Bees on the other hand, are flying insects of the class insecta, which typically live in a hive structure under the control of a single dominant female. Though not domesticated in the strictest sense, many types of bees are useful to humans and therefore undergo a certain amount of cultivation. Honey, otherwise known as nectar-based bee regurgitation, has been the primary sweetener for most of human history. It can also be fermented to produce mead, which you may recognise as the thing Vikings drank before going off to set fire to England. Again, tell your parents I'm very disappointed in them. You should really be learning these things much earlier.