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Asked by waricck to Vera on 14 Jun 2011.
Question: Why do female hyenas have penises?
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Vera Weisbecker answered on 14 Jun 2011:
Yeah, that is one crazy thing about hyaenas hey? Spotted hyaenas even give birth through this “penis” and often die as a result of the injuries involved in getting the baby out. Last time I read about this, the reason was that hyaenas have a very aggressive social life and need a lot of testosterone to survive and reproduce (in fact, even hyaena babies are full of testosterone and try to kill each other). As testosterone is also involved with the formation of male genitals, this hyper-testosterone life leads to even the girls developing penises.
Comments
Katie commented on :
Well I have learnt something else new! Surely this is a little odd as a female can only breed once it she is likely to die giving birth. Evolution hasn’t done a very good job there surely?!
Vera commented on :
Well, the females don’t always die, there is just a greater risk that she dies. It looks like it is more important to be aggressive to keep your spot in the social order. I’m not an expert on hyaenas but I can imagine that non-aggressive hyaenas don’t get to mate at all – in that case evolution will pick the most aggressive ones because only they can pass on their genes. By the way, a tragic waste of females is not restricted to hyaenas. Human birth is so risky that a mindboggling number of females die in the process (at least where no help is available). Yet it evolved, suggesting that overall human birth is not a bad thing for the survival of humans despite the waste of females. I find that this is truly the saddest aspect of evolution!
Sam commented on :
Katie: probably not ALL females die during birth. And probably the ones that didn’t have the extra testosterone wouldn’t even get to breed in the first place. So even though it means that they might die during childbirth, female hyenas with penises (technically superlarge clitorises not penises if I remember correctly) still produce more young than female hyenas without penises would do.
Sam commented on :
Ha – Vera got there first! Sorry for the repeat.
Vera commented on :
Well, by majority vote Sam and I are correct :-). The penis/clitoris thing is a bit of a grey zone. The male penis is developmentally a huge female clitoris (or the clitoris is a tiny penis – take your pick…). So boys and girls have the same thing in different sizes, and testosterone plays a role in increasing the size. Another piece of cool trivia – I male and female mammals have similar numbers of nerve endings in their penis/clitoris, so females have a much higher concentration of nerve endings per unit area…
Sam commented on :
Cool – you learn something new every day.
dwatkins96 commented on :
wow – i never knew that female hyenas had penises. thanks!
paul100 commented on :
You learn sometime new everyday. btw i eat snail babies
quelch commented on :
do you realy eat snail babies
paul100 commented on :
yeh twice a day
quelch commented on :
that sounds discusting paul100