The fact that the tuataras don’t have penises [sciencemag.org] 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.'