Bat uses its huge penis like an arm during sex

Male serotine bats have a bizarrely lengthy penis with a heart-shaped head that they use like an arm throughout intercourse.

“Bats are fairly fascinating in many alternative facets of their biology,” says Nicolas Fasel on the College of Lausanne in Switzerland. For instance, they dwell comparatively lengthy lives for his or her small physique dimension; some reportedly surpass 40 years previous.

“Their copy can be fairly superb,” says Fasel. Some feminine bats can retailer sperm of their uterus for a number of months after mating, and short-nosed fruit bats have been noticed performing fellatio on their companions throughout intercourse.

Now, Fasel and his colleagues have discovered that serotine bats (Eptesicus serotinus), a typical species discovered throughout Europe and Asia, additionally reproduce in a singular approach.

The workforce recorded movies of serotine bats within the attic of a church within the Netherlands and a bat rehabilitation centre in Ukraine. They observed that males have a disproportionately massive penis – extending to 22 per cent of the bat’s top throughout erections – with a tip formed like a coronary heart. That’s round seven occasions longer than the feminine bat’s vagina, says Fasel.

After analysing 97 mating occasions that have been captured on digital camera, the workforce realised that these bats shouldn’t have penetrative intercourse.

As an alternative, the male bats use their erect penises to push the protecting membrane across the females’ vulvas out of the way in which. As soon as the tip of the penis meets their mate’s vulva, the copulating bats keep nonetheless in a prolonged embrace for so long as 12.7 hours.

The feminine bats’ abdomens seemed moist after these interactions. The researchers assume that is semen, although Fasel says they want swab checks to substantiate this.

“That is the primary time we’ve seen mammals reproduce the place there isn’t any penetration,” says Fasel.

The workforce now hopes to review the bats in nearer quarters to confirm whether or not sperm switch truly happens throughout these occasions and to grasp why bats developed this distinctive option to have intercourse.