This is a university built in a "safari park".
Located in beautiful Heslington, York University has an 8,000-acre campus surrounded by meadows, lakes and woods, and is known for its abundance of wildlife. The largest number of them is a variety of ducks.
Among the many "unremarkable" wild ducks on campus, a different duck stands out.
The other ducks look like this:
And this duck looks like this:
In April, British children's writer King Smith shared a photo of it on Twitter, saying that it was the "tallest duck ever" and "1 meter tall", and immediately rose to fame and became a hot Internet celebrity in the United Kingdom.
Although it has only "debuted" this year, for the students of the University of York, this duck has long been an "old acquaintance" on campus. It appeared on campus in 2018 and was named Long Boi because of its distinctive body.
Zoe Duffin, a biology junior at the University of York, set up an account for Long Boi on Instagram back in 2019. To her surprise, this year, suddenly in just a few hours, the number of fans exceeded 10,000.
Today, the number of followers of the account has reached 45,000. Former England international Peter Crouch also tweeted that he was 2.01 meters tall and called LongBoi "my kind of duck".
Left: Rooney Right: Peter Crouch
Long Boi is not actually a purebred wild duck. According to the analysis of audubon of the Bird Conservation Association, Long Boi is a mixture of wild ducks and a larger domestic duck, the "Indian Running Duck", so it will have the appearance of a wild mallard duck and the size of an Indian running duck.
So why is this upright duck called a "running duck"?
As the name suggests, because the other ducks are limping, they use to run, and of course they lose the ability to fly.
Long Boi is like the "ugly duckling" at York University, once isolated from other ducks because they did not fit in. Duffin says it looks particularly lonely.
However, Long Boi is loved by York University students, and everyone is paying attention to it. Today, Long Boi has mixed with other ducks and is finally able to get along harmoniously.
Students generally believe that Long Boi is an abandoned pet that wandered around the Campus of the University of York. Because the other ducks at York University are "big deals.".
Although these ducks can be seen everywhere on campus every day, walking around every day, and meeting people without shying away, they are not ordinary ducks.
If you look closely, you will find that their feet are tied with a numbered duck, but they are the property of the Queen of England. If you eat them, they will be repatriated.
As an alien hybrid, Long Boi, compared to those "noble" ducks, can be described as very grounded, and gradually became the mascot of the University of York.
The University of York Library Twitter reminds students to wear masks
The first thing York University freshmen did when they came to campus was to look for Long Boi and see the influencer.
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