Scientists have discovered that snakes do have cl!torises, ending a long-held assumption that the female snakes don’t have a s£xual organ
Scientists have discovered that snakes do have cl!torises, ending a long-held assumption that the female snakes don’t have a s£xual organ.
While previous studies had mistaken snakes’ clitorises for scent glands or underdeveloped versions of penises, a new study published in the journal proceedings of the Royal Society B, revealed that snakes have not one but two individual clitorises called hemiclitores, separated by tissue and hidden by skin on the underside of the tail.
Megan Folwell, a Ph.D. candidate at Australia’s University of Adelaide and the study’s lead author said;
“Across the animal kingdom female gen!talia are overlooked in comparison to their male counterparts.
“Our study counters the long-standing assumption that the cl!toris (hemiclitores) is either absent or non-functional in snakes.”
The genitalia of male snakes and lizards, a group known as squamates, has been studied extensively since the 1800s, three of the study’s authors wrote earlier this year. They noted scientists have uncovered all kinds of information about the male gen!talia, called a hemipenis in squamates, including about the size, shape and even whether it has spines.
But ever since the snake p£n!ses were discovered, female snake gen!talia has been “conspicuously overlooked,” the new study says, with many assuming for years that the visible organs were underdeveloped hemipenes or scent glands.
To paint a more accurate picture of the female snake’s anatomy, Folwell and a group of international scientists analyzed adult females of nine snake species from different areas of the world, including Australia, Central America and South America.
The lead author said;
“I know it [the cl!toris] is in a lot of animals and it doesn’t make sense that it wouldn’t be in all snakes.
“I just had to have a look, to see if this structure was there or if it’s just been missed.”
They found that the animals have not one, but two individual hemiclitores separated by connective tissue, providing the first complete description of the animal’s cl!toris, known as hemiclitores in squamates.
