We should probably preface this by letting you know that the article that sparked this post is called "Horrific beetle sex: why the most successful males have the spikiest penises."
So, why is it that the most successful males have the spikiest penises? A possible answer and a terrifying picture after the jump.
According to the blog, Not Exactly Rocket Science, Mother Nature graced the male seed beetle with that monstrosity to the right—which obviously injures the female seed beetle—because:
It's possible that the injuries directly benefit the males, either because they stop the females from mating again or spend more efforts in raising their fertilised eggs to avoid the strain of future liaisons.
The alternative is that the spikes could give the males an edge in "sperm competitions", where they compete with rivals not through direct combat, but through fertilising as many eggs as possible. In this theory, the spines are important for winning these competitions, and the wounds they inflict are simply a nasty side-effect.
Sounds a little like some men we know: beating up their women so they'll be in no shape for another man. We can't imagine seed beetles care about monogomy, though, so we're going to go with the second "sperm competition" theory. (But what do we know about beetle sex? Absolutely nothing.)
Also, you've heard of a fluffer right? Well, to find out exactly what a bettle penis looked like, two lucky scientists got to fluff some male beetles:
The duo studied beetles taken from 13 countries across the tropics, from Brazil to the USA, and from Nigeria to Oman. The genitals of these different populations are very varied and to study them under a microscope, Hotzy and Arnqvist first had to fluff their subjects. They anaesthetised the males with carbon dioxide, and erected their penises with an "artificial inflater" - a microscopic plastic tip connected to a pump. Under a microscope, they measured the length of the longest spines and the size of the entire spine-bearing area.
Even after examining the males and females, however, scientists are still unsure of why the male beetle has a penis covered in spikes.
Luckily, for the female seed beetle, she can hold her own. She apparently has a huge amount of connective tissue lining her sexual tracts, so that whatever terrible sexual act the male beetle performs on her, she's not affected too badly. And (this is awesome) when she's had enough, she kicks the male until he lets go, it gets him to cum faster and get that spiky shaft the fuck out of her beetle juice.
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