A Female with a Penis? A Male with a Vagina?

In caves, in Brazil, a new genus, Neotrogla, has been discovered and it is by far one of the strangest ones yet. In all species of the genus, the sex organs have been switched, so the males have a vagina and the females a penis. Now surely you would say that this just makes the boys girls, and the girls, boys, but no, there is a reason why the animals are still the same sex but with different genitalia.

The female's penis, known as a gynosome enters the male and inflates. The gynosome has numerous spines that attach the couple together, the gynosome then sucks out the male sperm and nutritious seminal fluids to fertilise the eggs inside the female and also to provide food. Once joined, as a researcher discovered, the male's abdomen can be ripped from the thorax without breaking the coupling. These sexual encounters can last from anywhere between 40-70 hours!!

 If like me you are struggling to imagine just how this is possible, here is a diagram for you.

The role reversal was likely to have been driven by poor resources available in the cave and so the female gains an important food source from the seminal fluid. This also means that it is advantageous for the females to copulate multiple times.

Right now they are trying to establish a healthy population in the lab to be able to study the animals further.

To read more:
http://www.nature.com/news/female-insect-uses-spiky-penis-to-take-charge-1.15064
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(14)00314-5
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27056809