Sexy Science Fact #18 – CLAM SAUSAGE FEST

I’ve talked about how evolutionary, dudes don’t matter all that much. There are a handful of animals (including spider mites, bdelloid rotifers, and whiptail lizards) that are LADIES ONLY. They make their babies with a few different methods that all result in a chickload of chicks at the end. What we’ve learned is fellas are sometimes not that useful and that you can’t have a species without the fillies.

BUT APPARENTLY THAT IS NOT THE CASE.

In some species of Corbicula clams, they are ALL DUDES. (Yes, I LOVE the irony of an all-boy species being also all-clams.)

Aad van Meerkerk for Dutch Wikipedia

BUT HOW?

These guy-clams are born hermaphrodites (can make both sperm and eggs) and so they selfie in the nature way – meaning they make bebes with their own sperm and eggs. Which isn’t that weird. BUT here’s the weird part. They somehow kick out all of the egg genes during fertilization so they are just sperm clones of each other. All dudes. So these chaps would just be copying themselves forever which is not always the best choice.

Asexuality isn’t that unusual in nature, but one of the big benefits of sex (besides, um, orgasms) is it helps living things have more diversity in their genes, which is generally a plus.

So what these special gentlemen do is they STEAL EGGS FROM OTHER CLAMS. Clam boinking is usually more of a spewing of lady- and dude-spunk into the abyss (or the ocean) and hoping they find each other.

richardong / bostonreefers.org

Sometimes the Corbicula clam might find itself with a foreign egg. Instead of scrambling up an omelette, the clam might go the sexy route and fertilize this egg. He might not successfully eject all of the egg’s genes and POW. New genetic diversity and a possibly weird hybrid-clam that is still mostly Corbicula.

 

 

Sources

• Rare gene capture in predominantly androgenetic species, S Hedtke, et al (PNAS)
• All-male clams escape from genetic canyons by stealing eggs, E Yong (Nat Geo / Phenomena)

Sexy Science Fact #11 – BANG ANCHORS

Captain Obvious Sez: “Whales don’t have legs.” DUH. If they did, they’d look hilarious, as you can see by this picture of me riding a legged whale:

Doomgirl333 / Deviantart

JUST KIDDING. That picture isn’t of me. Thanks Doomgirl333 for letting me borrow your drawing!

Anyway, whales don’t have legs. This is common knowledge… probably? But did you know that WHALE ANCESTORS WALKED AND HAD LEGS? CRAZY. So whales still have some of these leg-bone-like-things in their skeletons.

University of Arkansas

VESTIGIAL means evolutionarily useless (though maybe useful in the evolutionary past). So like human coccyx, eyes in blind cavefish, or your ex’s brain HEY-O. See that pelvis? Vestigial! Pelvises support legs. Whales have no legs. So whale pelvises are useless. Thanks for reading.

WAIT! IS IT OVER?? THIS IS THE LEAST SEXY SEXY SCIENCE FACT EVER???!

Calm yo tits! THE SEXY PART COMES NOW!

That pelvis MAYBE HAS A USE AFTER ALL! If you know anything about whale love staffs, you might know they are huge and prehensile(ish). But to help whales with the figurative motion in the ocean, their winkles are anchored to their pelvic bones, helping them wiggle their pickle for easier banging! BANG ANCHORS. BANCHORS. NEW BAND NAME, I CALL IT.

Modified from Dines et al 2014

Also, the bigger the BANCHORS, the bigger the balls. Or the bigger the balls, the bigger the BANCHORS. Even when accounting for size of the whale! So a small whale with huge beanbags will also have huge pelvic bones, huger than you’d expect based on their size.

So… check out those SUPER HOT pelvic bones! If that’s what you’re into! Maybe you’re into small pelvic bones! It’s your call! All bodies are beautiful! *sexy cat noise*

Sources

• Sexual selection targets cetacean pelvic bones, Dines et al (Evolution)
• Long-forgotten secrets of whale sex revealed, Feltrman (Washington Post)

Sexy Science Fact #4 – NIPLESS TITS

SPRING BREAK!!!!! At least it is here. Or it was when I wrote this. Which was weeks ago, to be honest. ANYWAY SPRING BREAK! So we’re gonna talk about TITTIES. Or the lack thereof.

First off, mammals. Mammals are the hooters-lovers of the animal kingdom. By which I mean, they actually have ta-tas. Mamma basically literally means BREAST in Latin (the most useful of languages). So that’s it! We are what we eat, and we all started out eating fun-bags (or, ok, eating FROM fun-bags), so we’re all boobies as far as I’m concerned.

But wait a minute, have you ever seen a PLATYPUS IN A BIKINI? OK so I googled that, and this is the first thing that comes up:

CatrynFaeDragoness / Deviantart

and look, I don’t even know what to do with that picture.

But before that, DID YOU EVER SEE ONE? Probs not! Partly because I don’t know anyone who specializes in platypus couture, but also because they are NIP-LESS! So if they have no nips, why would they even need a bikini top?

Platypus are arguably the weirdest mammals for a lot of reasons, this is one of them! Without those mosquito bites, how can they FEED THEIR BABIES?? Well, like this:

not a great source, but Taringa

which is actually PRETTY ADORBS as far as I’m concerned.

But where does that sweet, sweet nectar come from?

Platypuses have “milk patches” where their mammary glands meet the surface of the skin. This is pretty similar to “sweat patches”– like your underarm. So there you have it. They basically just ooze milk from their belly-side and the babes have to find it and hope they found milk instead of sweat.

I also found this horrifying picture of two baby platypuses eating the insides of a big one. Or maybe they’re just lapping up some sweat-milk. Who knows. There was no caption.

Fotolia

Sources

• Platypus in Tasmania (Tasmanian Government)
• Platypus (American Museum of Natural History)
• The Platypus: A Unique Mammal, T Grant (book)