The study began when Nicolas Fasel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, and his colleagues noticed that the serotine bat (Eptesicus serotinus) has a rather large and unusual penis. When erect, it is 22% of the bat’s head–body length and has a bulbous, heart-shaped tip. “We were thinking it would be really difficult for it to enter anything,” he says.
The scientists would have left it at that, if not for serendipity. One day, Fasel received an email with the subject line “Eptesicus penis” and a film attached. He nearly trashed it as spam before reconsidering given the Latin species name. The email was from Jan Jeucken, a bat enthusiast who is closely monitoring a population of bats that live in a church attic near his house in the Netherlands. Jeucken had made videos of bats having sex in the church from an angle that made the entire act visible. It’s rare to see bat sex in the wild, let alone from directly underneath. The authors analysed 93 putative mating events that took place in this church attic, and 4 further instances at a bat-rehabilitation centre in Ukraine.
During sex, the male grasps the back of the female and bites the nape of her neck, presumably to hold on. Then he moves his erect penis around the female’s tail membrane, searching for the vulva. Once this has been located, the male stays still, with the penis held firmly against the vulva. There is no penetration, but it is likely that the sperm find their way into the vagina. The longest sex act continued for 12.7 hours, but half of the recorded copulations lasted for 53 minutes or less. After mating, the fur on the female’s belly appeared wet, which the researchers suggested indicates the presence of semen.
(节选自Nature新闻)
The scientists would have left it at that, if not for serendipity. One day, Fasel received an email with the subject line “Eptesicus penis” and a film attached. He nearly trashed it as spam before reconsidering given the Latin species name. The email was from Jan Jeucken, a bat enthusiast who is closely monitoring a population of bats that live in a church attic near his house in the Netherlands. Jeucken had made videos of bats having sex in the church from an angle that made the entire act visible. It’s rare to see bat sex in the wild, let alone from directly underneath. The authors analysed 93 putative mating events that took place in this church attic, and 4 further instances at a bat-rehabilitation centre in Ukraine.
During sex, the male grasps the back of the female and bites the nape of her neck, presumably to hold on. Then he moves his erect penis around the female’s tail membrane, searching for the vulva. Once this has been located, the male stays still, with the penis held firmly against the vulva. There is no penetration, but it is likely that the sperm find their way into the vagina. The longest sex act continued for 12.7 hours, but half of the recorded copulations lasted for 53 minutes or less. After mating, the fur on the female’s belly appeared wet, which the researchers suggested indicates the presence of semen.
(节选自Nature新闻)
