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Hyena Power Rule
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2025
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Nine-Inch Pseudopenis (Futa Clitoruleis)
For anyone interested, let me add that hyenas give birth through their pseudo-penis. Have fun in the hyena rabbit hole, there is lots to be discovered!
Wait what?!
If that helps, it's actually a really long clitoris which is used to urinate, copulate and well... give birth. The first-born cubs are usually stillborn as the pseudo-penis needs to rip open, which does take some extra time the first time around. There's also a solid chance the mother dies in the process.
That does not help. How in the name of Darwin did this happen?
That's the fun part, we don't know actually! There are some theories though. Among others:
Could be for females to better select their mates since you simply cannot fuck without their consent. On that note, do you know about duck genitals?
Others think it could be camouflage since females, especially cubs, get attacked more often. Did I mention that females also have a fake scrotum?
There's also the idea that the penis is for social purposes. Females can get an erection and inspecting as well as licking each others erections is a normal greeting in hyena land! Presenting your erection is a submissive thing though.
If you dive deep enough into the rabbit hole, you could be the first to discover the truth!
and we call ourselves civil ...
it really is amazing how learning about nature makes you realize that us humans are by far the least fucked up animals, except perhaps bonobos who seem to have things a bit more figured out than we do.
It's all a matter of perspective, other animals would think the same about us for such concepts as:
Now, compare this to let's say a jellyfish, which didn't even change that much for millions of years because it just works.
Genuinely enjoyed your responses, I guess hyenas and platypus are things we'll never understand
Echidnas have weird dicks, as well. Spiny, and 4-headed. The heads function two at a time, and alternate - though I'm not sure the frequency. Didn't read that far cause there was a picture and I was like "holy shit."
Holy shit. Nature is really metal
What evolutionary benefit do these pseudopenises have?
Not everything has to have an evolutionary benefit. If it doesn't impose a significant malus, random nonsense mutations can just as easily become evolved traits. Evolution doesn't have a plan, and nature makes frequent mistakes.
This random mutation, which seems to be mostly negative, has to have outbred the standart form to be the widely known hyena today, no? It just seems to be the sorta trait that would disappear along the way.
Interestingly, evolution doesn't seem like it's actually random. There's mechanisms to it we're only beginning to understand
It seems to only improve in a single area (genetically) so much before switching, it doesn't optimize, it is focused, and the rate of evolution is driven by stress.
My theory is that too much success would cause a population boom and bust, and so it's encoded into terrestrial life very early on - the studies come from bacteria genetically edited to break respiration pathways, and all the evolution was focused there before the evolution moved to a different area - but they didn't even recover their original efficiency, possibly because they just reached a comfortable point without competition
So in this case, I think the female hyenas were probably being killed opportunistically, which led to evolutions related to size and dominance. Bigger females that fuck the males in dominance rituals are enough to relieve the evolutionary stress, and so evolution slowed and they reached "good enough"
If you want to know some theories about their purpose, I've written a few in respone to another comment!
Dropout has a series called WTF101, which is like a weird, drug fueled, sex addled Magic School bus. Whole episode about weird sex, and hyenas make an appearance... A most unfortunate appearance.
😳🫣