Penii (sic) with Cecil Poole
We here at Passive Complicity have held a long interest in penii. (as opposed to an interest in long penii, which may or may not hold true, however the information is private and confidential, and probably in poor taste.) Actually this is not true. I have undertaken comprehensive research and the medical writings all recognised the plural of penis as either penes or penises. My research only covers medical writings. I have, again in the interest of propriety, eschewed the more salacious writings (of which there are volumes, with pictures)
As part of my bedtime routine I’ve been reading biologist Tim Lowe’s “Where Song Began – Australia’s birds and how they changed the world”. This book is filled with interest, building understandings of our natural world and the influences on ‘the origin of species’ through climate changes, tectonic plate movement, migration birds and other animals and the spread of flora.
Previously we reported Lowe’s accounts of the promiscuity of certain bird species.
Today we look at penes (or penises if you prefer). Through Tim Lowe’s words.
“A little know fact about birds is that very few species – only about 3 per cent – sport a penis. Most practice the ‘cloacal kiss’, a transfer of sperm when their cloacas (lower openings) breifly meet. Penises are made interesting by how well they fit the phylogenetic tree, in that nearly all birds with a phallus are landfowl, waterfowl or Palaeognaths. Penises were inherited from dinosaurs, then disposed of by the line of birds that gave rise to most species alive today.
Hygiene probably explains why penises were lost. Birds face more disease risk than mammals since they use the same opening for defecation and sex. Reptiles have a single opening as well, but they have lower temperatures to reduce the risk of infection. In birds, to limit the contact between warm damp skin, evolution may have favoured smaller and smaller penises until none remained. Penises are to birds what platypus eggs are to mammals – a ‘primitive’ feature. Teeth are something else that in birds but not in mammals count as ‘primitive’.
Some bird penises are exceptional. An aroused Argentine lake drake finds himself in command of a 40-centimetre implement. The sharp spine along the base probably facilitate rape. Australian blue-billed ducks may be similarly endowed since they are closely related, but no one has produced a tape measure at the right moment. To thwart rape, the females of some ducks possess multiple false vaginas. Ducks probably face little disease risk because they have so much water washing over their cloacas. Landfowl are by comparison modestly endowed.
Ref. ‘Where Song Began’ Tim Lowe, Penguin Books, Melbourne 2014