1/11/2024 0 Comments Silverback gorilla penis size![]() Unlike male mountain gorillas, which prefer to mate with fertile females, Doran-Sheehy’s silverback went for higher-ranking females, fertile or not. Another female named UG mated throughout her pregnancy, almost always when another female was trying to become pregnant. With only lactating – and therefore sexually inactive – females remaining, MK ceased offering herself to the silverback. Strategic sexįor instance, after one female, MK, became pregnant she mated with the silverback during three consecutive oestrus cycles of another gorilla, EB, who left the group afterwards. However, females seemed to time such post-conceptive romps with the fleeting fertility of another female. Her team recorded most copulations and all births among a human-habituated group of gorillas at the Mondika research centre in the Republic of Congo for 1147 days between September 2003 and January 2007.Īll five females gave birth to one infant during the study and all engaged in sex after pregnancy, the researchers found. “It’s what’s going on with the females in the group.” “It doesn’t have all that much to do with the males,” Doran-Sheehan says. Yet paternity isn’t an issue for silverback gorillas, which usually enjoy exclusive access to a harem of females. “All of the males think they could be the father of your offspring,” Doran-Sheehy says. Bonobos treat coitus like a handshake, while female chimpanzees mate during pregnancy and outside fertile periods, or oestrus, to gain support from males and to protect against infanticide. However, Homo sapiens and Gorilla gorilla aren’t the only apes who engage in recreational sex. Say what you will about animal penises but they’re a perfect example of how fascinating, diverse, and maybe a bit weird, nature truly is.This kind of competitive behaviour may even help explain how humans evolved into a mostly monogamous species, she says. The more complex penises belong to primates like bushbabies and lemurs, who mate with many partners in their lifetime. Primates with simpler penises tend to be monogamous (only have one partner) or polygynous (mate with only a few partners). We are the only primate without a bone in the penis and have a relatively more simple structure. The size and shape of penises in primates vary too and compared to other animals, the human penis is actually rather dull. In fact, humans have a proportionately large penis size compared to their body size – but length is not everything (am I right?). The largest gorilla will only have a penis that is two and half inches long when erect. However, the penis size of many primates is much compared to the testes. To put that into perspective, a human’s testis is only 50 grams, so chimps have a testis that is 3 times that! This is a third of the size of its brain. To accommodate this increased level of sperm production, the chimpanzee’s testis is relatively large, at a weight of 150 to 170 grams. The more sperm produced, the more likely it is that the female’s offspring will have that chimp’s DNA (which is the main goal in all primates, and indeed many animals). This results in sperm competition whereby each of the males need to produce lots of sperm to outcompete the other males. What’s more, each of these females are only fertile about once or twice every four years! So, a large penis is not exactly necessary.Ĭhimpanzees are pretty promiscuous creatures with several males mating with one female whilst she is fertile. Silverback males own a group of three-four females, known as a harem, who are constantly either pregnant or breastfeeding. Whilst this may seem surprising, gorillas don’t need massive genitals given the sexual dynamics of this species. Did you know that male silverback gorillas weigh around 250 kilograms, but their penis and testes are only 10 grams? That’s equivalent to a vending machine having a testis the weight of 10 paperclips.
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