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posted by cmn32480 on Friday October 30 2015, @09:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the now-this-is-hard-science dept.

The fact that the tuataras don't have penises makes them a useful study organism because it allows scientists to ask whether the lizards' ancestors had penises and lost them, or never had them to begin with. Now, according to new research published today in Biology Letters, the last common ancestor of all the amniotes did, in fact, have an erectable phallus, and that the modern diversity is the result of evolutionary tweaks over time (not the separate evolution of different phalluses).

Overheard at a cocktail party:

'So, what do you do?'
'I study lizard penises.'


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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 30 2015, @03:14PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 30 2015, @03:14PM (#256494) Journal

    That's kind of awesome. I learned long ago that roosters don't have a penis, and somehow, I ASSumed that other birds don't have them either. You link to a bird penis, so I double check - some birds do not, some birds do have penises. Hmmmmm . . . seems that chickens did have them, way back in the mists of time, but then they lost them. Interesting.

    Now, I'm almost tempted to find out why male ducks - and ostriches - need that crazy looking thing. Almost.

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