Scientists Discover Female Insects With Penises.

By Abhinav Mishra

Staff Writer 

Four insects have been discovered in Brazil that possesses female penises and the male insect has a vagina. This was the first time ever in the animal kingdom that a female of the species had a penis.

Sexual organs are not the determiner of a sex, neither are sex chromosomes rather biologists rely on the size of an animal's gametes — sperm in males and oocytes in females. The biologists are guided by the criteria that females are the sex that contribute the largest gametes, whereas males are the sex that contributes the smallest gametes.

The males produce the least amount of energy on producing these cells. Penises and vaginas are irrelevant in the factor of being male or female as the female insects in this instance produces the largest gametes, which are egg cells. It just happened that the female is in possession of a penis during sexual intercourse.

"The female penis is a completely novel structure," said Yoshizawa Kazunori, an entomologist at Japan's Hokkaido University and co-author of the study. Due to the presence of a penis in these four species of winged insects, called Neotrogla – the insects have adopted more of masculine traits. The Researchers discovered these cave-dwelling insects in Brazil's Peruaçu River Valley.

When it's time to mate, the female mounts the male and penetrates his vagina-like opening using her gynosome which is the term used to designate her female-penis. This mating behavior lasts from a range of 40 to 70 hours, as the females’ inflatable, spiny penis anchors itself to the male's internal tissues. During this time, the female Neotrogla gathers large quantities of sperm that she uses to fertilize her eggs.

"Because the female's anchoring force is very strong, a male's resistance may cause damage to his genitalia," Yoshizawa said. "Therefore, it is very likely that entire mating processes are controlled actively by females, whereas males are rather passive." This discovery has led to researchers making comparisons with other insects through the collection of genomic data to understand how the development of the female penis occurred.