| Title | Sexual Conflict Can Cause Genitals to Change Shape, Beetle Study Shows | |
| Date | Tuesday May 24 2016, @12:16AM | |
| Author | cmn32480 | |
| Topic | ||
| from the there-is-a-joke-here-someplace dept. | ||
Sexual conflict between males and females can lead to changes in the shape of their genitals, according to research on burying beetles by scientists at the University of Exeter.
The study, published in the journal Evolution, provides new evidence that conflict over how often mating takes place can lead to males evolving longer penis-like organs and females larger 'claws' on their genitalia, within ten generations.
Genital shape varies enormously across the animal kingdom compared, for instance, to body shape. One reason for this may be that the shapes of male and female genitalia co-evolve as a result of sexual conflict. Dr Megan Head, one of the authors of the new study said: "It takes two to tango, so when changes in shape in one sex leads to corresponding changes in the other sex this is known as co-evolution."
Mixed results: males have longer penises, females have claws on their vaginas. Which part of that is bad is left as an exercise for the reader.
Selection on an antagonistic behavioral trait can drive rapid genital coevolution in the burying beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides (open, DOI: 10.1111/evo.12938)
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printed from SoylentNews, Sexual Conflict Can Cause Genitals to Change Shape, Beetle Study Shows on 2024-04-20 16:16:47