Culture

People Are Losing Their Minds Over ‘Long Boi’, A Huge Duck Who Is Very Tall

I, for one, welcome our new long overlord.

by Michelle Rennex  30 April 2021
Long Boi duck meme

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We’ve met many iconic ducks over the years.

There was the unforgettable Hot Duck, who lives out his life beautifully splashing about Central Park. Then we gained our own hottie with the sexy Goth Duck, who lives in the less glamorous surroundings of Victoria’s sewage ponds. And how can anyone forget the iconic Drummer Duck who found joy by tapping his big orange feet on a drum.

But there is now a new bird on the scene to rival all other viral ducks for one reason and one reason alone: The duck is fucking huge.

Seriously. The big duck — called ‘Long Boi’, as you can imagine why —  supposedly stands a metre tall. For reference, most mallard ducks measure around 60cm in length. So Long Boi is an absolute unit.

However, while Long Boi is undeniably long, Snopes reports that he isn’t actually a mallard duck as the viral tweet has claimed.

“The tallest mallard duck to have ever lived (since records began) known as ‘Long Boi’,” the tweet reads. “He lives on the campus of the University of York, England. He stands just over one metre tall (3.5 feet).”

Long Boi is actually a cross between and mallard and Indian Runner, with Indian Runners growing from 66 to 81cm tall on average. Long Boi is also not a metre tall as the tweet claimed either.

The tall duck is actually around 70 cm, which is pretty spot on for his breed. Our tall boy only looks as big as he does because he hangs around short kings all day on campus, which makes him look comically large.

But the technicalities of what Long Boi is or isn’t hasn’t stopped the love he gets. The big duck has actually even received an honorary degree from York University that has technically turned him into Long Boi PhD.

And if a PhD wasn’t enough, the internet has now turned the huge duck into an even bigger meme as people have begun to speculate how a duck could possibly get that big.

While chatting to HuffPost, the anonymous legends behind Long Boi’s Instagram account explained that they thought he was “abandoned [on campus] as an unwanted pet“.

“When we first saw him he didn’t really fit in with the other ducks and was shunned by them a bit,” they shared. “Now he has really flourished and integrated with the others.”

“He’s quite friendly and loves being fed by visitors… in fact our on-campus shop even stocks bird seed specifically for all the waterfowl,” the Instagram creators continued. “He’s super well-loved here on campus.”

 

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A post shared by Long boi (@longboiyork)

You can keep up with the adventures of Long Boi on his Instagram here.