![]() ![]() They have no scrotum and unlike other mammals, they use their penises only for mating. The male echidnas' testes never descend and it is stored internally. The Sydney zoo has not identified its gender yet at this time.Īlso read: Clownfish in Coastal Reefs Could Be Dying From Artificial Light Sources Echidnas Only Use Their Penis for Mating Last Friday, a short-beaked echidna puggle was born in Sydney's Taronga Zoo, Australia, and was the tenth born of his kind. ![]() In addition, echidna penis has enough length to reach the female echidna's uterus. It takes 100 sperms to bundle up and work together to reach an egg and bear a small puggle echidna. Researchers reasoned that echidna potentially uses only one side of their penis to attract female echidna and the alternating use of each side allows them to ejaculate 10 times more without stopping, winning over other males like it's a competition. They control which of the other half of their penis is erect by directing blood flow to one side. Fenelon and her team found that only two of the four glans become functional during erection. University of Melbourne developmental biologist Jane Fenelon told ScienceAlert that the mammal merges together two of its penises and uses them independently. ![]() Technically, echidnas believe that they only have two penises. PRESTON, ENGLAND - JULY 20: A stuffed echidna sits in the laboratory of Natural History Conservator Lucie Mascord, of Lancashire Conservation Studios as part of a the major conservation and preservation project for The Grant Museum of Zoology on Jin Preston, England.Īustralia has indeed proven its wildlife wonders as a home to the rarest of species, from biofluorescing mammals that lay eggs and sweat milk to echidnas with four-tipped monstrosity. “There's some evidence that the penis in all amniotes (reptiles, birds, and mammals) has the same evolutionary origin and the monotremes are a missing piece of that puzzle.(Photo : Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images) “We'd like to look into how this unusual structure develops and how similar it is to the crocodiles and turtles, which the adult form looks most like,” Fenelon said. While the similarities between egg-laying female echidnas and reptiles are obvious, the penile paper notes there’s potential to prove that the males have something of a reptilian edge to their side of things, too. Monotremes diverged around 184 million years ago, which could explain why they share some of their traits with unrelated animals (let’s be honest, the platypus is like a beaver with a beak). But this is the first time this has been seen in a mammal, so we really don't know.” Most of the time the four-tipped wonder is tucked away. They may also be able to alternate which epididymis the sperm come from each time. “In the one male echidna we have erection details for, he alternates the use of each side each time which suggests the potential for a quick turnaround. “It's possible it's to do with male-male competition for females,” explained Fenelon. Four tips in a penis that can essentially switch sides per mating event is all well and good, but how does it help these prickly bachelors? This combined with the penile artery which is split into two branches in the echidna penis explains why only two tips turn up to the party, and how this unilateral ejaculation adaptation is made possible. Before the study we predicted there was going to be some sort of valve mechanism that controlled this, but we found nothing like that.” The males can flit from one side to the next quite quickly, potentially increasing their reproductive opportunities. “Together with the split of the major blood vessel and urethra it gives the impression that the end of the echidna penis is acting like two separate glans penises, which explains how they could do the unilateral ejaculation. “In most other species these start separate but then they merge,” Fenelon told IFLScience. Lead author and research fellow Dr Jane Fenelon believes this is due to the corpora spongiosa, the mass of spongy tissue that surrounds the males’ urethras, being entirely separate from the rest of the echidnas' penis. Each of the four tips is capable of delivering sperm as well as urine, but remarkably only two of them are used per reproductive attempt. ![]()
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