{"id":991,"date":"2014-04-17T12:30:03","date_gmt":"2014-04-17T17:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=991"},"modified":"2014-04-21T16:16:29","modified_gmt":"2014-04-21T21:16:29","slug":"in-brazilian-cave-insects-females-have-penises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/in-brazilian-cave-insects-females-have-penises\/","title":{"rendered":"In Brazilian cave insects, females have penises"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_992\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/71582_web.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-992\" class=\"size-full wp-image-992\" alt=\"Female cave insects of the genus Neotrogla have elaborate, penis-like organs called gynosomes. (Credit: Yoshizawa et al, Current Biology)\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/71582_web.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/71582_web.jpg 400w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/71582_web-300x180.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-992\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Female cave insects of the genus Neotrogla have elaborate, penis-like organs called gynosomes. (Credit: Yoshizawa et al, Current Biology, via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eurekalert.org\/multimedia\/pub\/71582.php?from=265049\" target=\"_blank\">Cell Press<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Researchers have discovered four related species of cave insects in the genus <em>Neotrogla<\/em> in which females have evolved an elaborate, penis-like organ known as a gynosome. By contrast, males have a much reduced, vagina-like opening, through which they provide nutritious seminal gifts in addition to sperm. Because of the resource-poor environment of the cave, it\u2019s advantageous for females to mate at a higher rate; the researchers speculate that this situation may have driven the evolution of the unusual mating system.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cell.com\/current-biology\/abstract\/S0960-9822(14)00314-5\" target=\"_blank\">Original research paper<\/a><\/span>\u00a0published in the journal\u00a0<em><\/em><i>Current Biology\u00a0<\/i>on\u00a0<strong>April 17, 2014<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Names and affiliations of selected<\/strong><strong>\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<h4><a href=\"http:\/\/www.psocodea.org\/kazu\/yoshie.html\" target=\"_blank\">Kazunori Yoshizawa<\/a>, Hokkaido University, Japan<\/h4>\n<h4>Rodrigo Ferreira, Federal University of Lavras, Brazil<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers have discovered four related species of cave insects in the genus Neotrogla in which females have evolved an elaborate, penis-like organ known as a gynosome. By contrast, males have a much reduced, vagina-like opening, through which they provide nutritious seminal gifts in addition to sperm. Because of the resource-poor environment of the cave, it\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":992,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[174,917,40],"class_list":["post-991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-animals","tag-evolution","tag-insects"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/71582_web.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-fZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=991"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1113,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions\/1113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}