2021-05-13

[public] 195K views, 10.7K likes, dislikes audio only

MinuteEarth

Because there are so many different types of penises among our evolutionary relatives, we didn’t know until a recent discovery whether they all had the same origin.

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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:

- Amniote: Vertebrates whose embryos are enclosed in a thin sac.

- Cloaca: A posterior orifice used for excretion and reproduction.

- Cloacal Kiss: A method that penisless amniotes use to mate, which involves males and females momentarily pressing their cloacae together.

- Tuatara: Reptiles endemic to New Zealand that are the only surviving members of their ancient amniote group.

- Hemipenis: One of the paired copulatory organs of lizards and snakes.

- Bmp4: A protein that, when present, stifles the growth of penises in chick embryos.

- Convergent Evolution: The independent evolution of similar features in different species.

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Emily Willingham | Script Writer

David Goldenberg | Script Editor & Narrator

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REFERENCES

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Ortiz-Ospina, E. (2017). “Life Expectancy” – What does this actually mean?. Our World In Data. Retrieved from: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy-how-is-it-calculated-and-how-should-it-be-interpreted.

Dendy, Arthur. 1899. “Memoirs: Outlines of the Development of the Tuatara, Sphenodon (Hatteria) punctatus.” Journal of Cell Science s2-42: 1–87.

Cree, Alison. 2014. Tuatara: Biology and Conservation of a Venerable Survivor. Christchurch, New Zealand: Canterbury University Press.

Gans, Carl, James C. Gillingham, and David Lang Clark. 1984. “Courtship, Mating and Male Combat in Tuatara, Sphenodon punctatus.” Journal of Herpetology 18 (2): 194–97. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.2307/1563749.

Sanger, Thomas J., Marissa L. Gredler, and Martin J. Cohn. 2015. “Resurrecting Embryos of the Tuatara, Sphenodon punctatus, to Resolve Vertebrate Phallus Evolution.” Biology Letters 11 (10): pii: 20150694. REtreieved from: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0694.

Herrera, Ana María, Simone G. Shuster, Claire L. Perriton, and Martin J. Cohn. 2013. “Developmental Basis of Phallus Reduction During Bird Evolution.” Current Biology 23 (12): 1065–74. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.04.062.

Brennan, Patricia L. R. 2016a. “Evolution: One Penis After All.” Current Biology 26: R29–R31. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.11.024.

Willingham, Emily. 2020. Fallacy: Life Lessons from the Animal Penis. Avery. Retrieved from: https://www.amazon.com/Phallacy-Life-Lessons-Animal-Penis/dp/0593087178