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- Researchers fed eight captive mallards the fertilized eggs of two invasive fish species: the common carp and the Prussian carp, according to a statement. The researchers fed each duck roughly 500 eggs from each type of carp. Six of the ducks passed living eggs in their feces, but researchers were only able to recover a total of 18 intact eggs, of which just 12 contained living embryos. Nine more eggs died due to fungal infection, but one baby common carp and two Prussian carp successfully hatched, according to the paper.
These odds might seem like a vanishingly small success-rate, but a single common carp can lay up to 1.5 million eggs, several times a year, according to Audubon—and mallards are virtually ubiquitous in North America, Asia and Europe.