The subject of human and animal sexuality has always been personally fascinating. What nature does to compensate adversarial blockades in order to multiply is astounding.
7. Bush Crickets (katydids)
Imagine if a 200 pound man had testicles that weighed 28 pounds - and that was normal. Well, that is the case with bush crickets. Their testicles are 14% of their body weight!
Common in American and Australia, bush crickets can also be found in fewer numbers around the globe. Interestingly, the testicles widely vary in texture. They can be very spiky or prickly to very smooth. Perhaps this has to do with the variation of the female bush crickets' female organs, who knows.
SEE IMAGE of bush cricket's testicles.
Unfortunately, this does not mean they have a large output of semen. Contrarily, they have a rather tiny amount of "ammunition". The unusual size of the testicles has more to do with stamina. This is because male bush crickets have to endure very promiscuous partners. The female is known to mate as much as 23 times before she is satisfied with the outcomes.
6. Carabid Beetles
These beetles don't follow the law of nature in regards to symmetry. They only have one testicle. This doesn't seem to affect their breeding capabilities whatsoever. In fact, these types of beetles give more than just semen to their partner. Their accessory glands produce the semen before it goes into the testicle. The accessory glands have rich nourishment for the fertilized eggs, promoting their well-being and survival.
IMAGE of abnormal beetle (on left) with two testicles and normal beetle (on right) with one testicle.
For reasons that researchers can't explain yet, the left testicle is the one that is almost always missing. One thing researchers do know is that the accessory glands make for a tight squeeze in the already cramped abdominal cavity. Therefore, another testicle would likely seem redundant.
5. Western Harvest Mice
The harvest mouse has the longest recorded penis in all of the animal kingdom. This is relative to the size of the animal, of course.
It is hard to imagine that the cute animal above, at a mere 17 cm long, has an 8 cm penis. The male harvest mouse must have a formidable penis length. Otherwise, he will not be allowed to mate with a female. The female ultimately decides who her partner will be depending on penis size.
4. Ducks
The female is in charge in this species as well. The female will contort her female organs at will to make it impossible for the male to mate with her. To counteract this unyielding barrier, the male must make his penis as big, as thick, and as oddly shaped as possible to achieve success in mating.
To read more about the morphology of ducks, CLICK HERE.
3. Fruit Flies (drosophila bifurca)
Once having the largest testicles recorded, but now snubbed by the bush cricket, the fruit fly still holds the record for longest sperm cells (in relation to body size). It is amazing that this annoying, tiny fly that pesters humans and animals alike can carry this record out of the entire animal kingdom. Its sperm cells are 5.8 cm long. They are under a great deal of performance pressure because the fruit fly only makes a few hundred sperm cells in his entire lifetime.
2. Polar Bears
This is a particularly sad fact: The polar bear's genitals are shrinking because of pollution. Because their food, like seals and other marine life, are exposed to chemicals like chlorine and industrial pollution, polar bears ingest these chemicals. The chemicals act like hormones when broken down in their systems.
Normally, male polar bears' testicles are three inches wide and their penis bones are seven inches long. They are now significantly shrinking as pollution continues to increase in volume.
Polar bears are notoriously under-sexed and have low reproductive rates to begin with. Now, with undersized testicles and penises, with growing evidence that ovaries are also shrinking, the polar bear population will inevitably wither away.
1. Bats
Most intriguing of all is the ratio between brains and testicles in bats. This is a classic example of the old adage "you can't have your cake and eat it too".
Bats that have large brains are unlikely to have big testicles too. In fact, "smart or brainy" bats are less fertile. Studies indicate that when there is a plethora of females to mate with and promiscuity is quite favorable, their brains will shrink and their testicles will grow larger. However, when they are monogamous, their brains will stay large and their testicles will shrivel up.
Another Catch-22 is the fact that sperm lives a very long time in the female bat once ejaculated. This creates a befuddlement to mate as many times with one female and with numerous females as well to ensure successful mating.
It is because of the wide incongruity of bat colonies - monogamous versus promiscuous - that bats hold the record of the widest range of testes mass: between 0.12% and 8.5% of body mass.
The conclusion of this article is this: Those who want to be successful at mating in the animal world need to be flexible and creative. They need to know when to switch on their brains or their testicles, restructure their genitals at will and keep in mind that promiscuity is not always best.