Some flatworms, for instance these pretty Pseudobiceros hancockanus, engage in penis fencing. Both individuals are hermaphrodites, i.e., have both male and female organs. The penis is white, pointed and two-headed. Both individuals are trying to inseminate the other. The one who is inseminated has to bear and lay eggs - a more expensive proposition. The one who "won" the fencing bout and did the insemination can move on and fence some other guys and on and on, "fathering" many progeny until happenning onto a better fencer, getting inseminated, and spending the rest of the life as "mother".
- Log in to post comments
More like this
Some flatworms, for instance these pretty Pseudobiceros hancockanus, engage in penis fencing. Both individuals are hermaphrodites, i.e., have both male and female organs. The penis is white, pointed and two-headed. Both individuals are trying to inseminate the other. The one who is inseminated…
You've got to feel sorry for the female seed beetle. Whenever she mates with a male, she has to contend with his spiked, nightmarish penis (remember this picture?). And despite the damage that it inflicts, one liaison just isn't enough; female seed beetles typically mate with many males before they…
Not all animals must have sex with another individual to produce perfectly viable offspring. And neither do humans, thanks to technological breakthroughs in artificial insemination. But what about those critters that do not require masturbation and meat basters to produce babies sans contact with…
Spring is finally slinking into the northeast, and the backyard wildlife here is shaking off the winter torpor. Our oldest daughter, Charlotte, is now old enough to be curious about this biological exuberence. She likes to tell stories about little subterranean families of earthworm mommies and…