Dr. Tiana Pirtle
Appearances
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
The insect world is really fascinating when it comes to genitals and insects where the females have the penis. Well, we would call it a gynosome, but it would be what we think of as penis. And the male has the receiving organ. Yes, there's many ways to be a male and a female.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
So there's a couple more animals I want to go through. So far we've just been talking about generally one vagina, but there are animals with two.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Yes. In fact, there are many animals with two. So this is the rattlesnake. So you can see there's two of them. Two vaginas, two uteri. And each one can be fertilized? The males have two-pronged penis, the hemipenes. So they use them both at the same time.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
And then they have the two vaginas, two uterus. So... To clitoris? Yes. Hemiclitoris is what it's called in snakes. Does it give pleasure? And hemipene. So there's been remarkably little research about clitorises, which is remarkable because all mammals definitely have one. And I'm pretty sure... Pretty much all vertebrates have one as well.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
And we don't really know what they do for these animals, but presumably they play an important role in reproduction. Because otherwise that's a big lot of wasted energy for evolution.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Okay. Well, so snakes, these rattlesnakes, they reproduce quite fast. Slowly. They're long-lived, slow-growing animals. So I believe they don't become sexually mature until they're about 13. Okay. And they also don't produce very many clutches. So what these snakes do and a lot of other species in the animal queendom do is they'll store sperm.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
So these guys have like a special organ that will store the sperm over winter for years even. Oh, wow. I believe there's a tortoise or a turtle that stored sperm for four years.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
And then produce a clutch from it. Wow, they've got like a little IVF fridge in there.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
These snakes, they'll go around and mate with the males they come across. They can be quite indiscriminate because they can keep all the sperm they find and deal with it later. That is amazing. They could store it for that long. Yes.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
And then there's some evidence to suggest that snakes, alligators, sharks, all these species that are storing sperm can then select which sperm to use for which clutch. And we don't exactly know how they're doing this, but there's quite a complex dialogue happening between the sperm and the vagina environment.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
So the female will mate with a bunch of different males, store the sperm, and then we think when she releases an egg, she'll somehow, using the word choose generously, but she'll somehow be like, all right, well, for this egg, what we really need is this sperm.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
We want this sperm. Well, in the ejaculate you have quite a diverse range of sperms. This sperm has crappy genetics. We're not going to choose that one. Oh, this one. It's got great receptors on the outside.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
We're going to help this one go forward. Interesting. And you'll be the one to fertilize my eggs and that'll increase my baby's chance of survival. Amazing. So clearly some animals have evolved these bells and whistles, these sperm storage facilities. Corkscrews.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Why is it that... Which, you know, I do still love it though. It's one of my favorites. It's very regal looking, isn't it?
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
It's just like a very long tube. Coincides with a very long, thin penis. I could only imagine. Well, this vagina does many amazing things still.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
What's happening here? So this vagina is punctured by a very long penis that has a little hook on the end of it.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
What does the alpaca penis look like? Terrifying. It's long and thin and it has a collagenous hook on the bottom. Alpacas are quite unusual in the mammal world in that most penises stay in the vagina, deposit the sperm within the vaginal canal. The cervix will often kind of function as a bit of a a quality control checkpoint and the sperm have to make it through the cervix.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
So there's some animals with multiple vaginas, some with corkscrews, vaginal folds, long and thin ones. Yes. Thicker, fatter ones.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
The trapdoor of the cervix, yes. Whereas for these guys, the penis punctures through, the little hook pokes through the cervix and deposits the sperm straight into the uterus. Ooh, okay.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Does feel efficient. Which is, if I'm gunning for the male alpaca, good strategy, I would say. Good work, Evolution. Yeah.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
And, you know, this is potentially because male alpacas are what we call dribble ejaculators. Hello now. Dribble ejaculators. So the ejaculate dribbles out very slowly. So mating can take up to an hour in alpacas. It's like anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes. And it happens in a very reclined repose. The female alpaca will sit on the ground.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
The male will get on top of her and sometimes she'll lay down on her side, have a nap, wait for him to finish his job. And so other species, the ejaculate comes out with force. Get familiar with those species.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
So, you know, needs a little bit of force to get through the cervix. Whereas I guess, you know, if you're dribbling, you might as well put it where it needs to go. Ah! Of course, that makes sense. I guess this nondescript normal vagina can look the way it does because the female has a high degree of control behaviorally. So if she's not intimating, she'll just stand up and walk away.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Or if she doesn't want it in the first place, she just won't lay down. So she hasn't necessarily needed to evolve all these fancy bells and whistles to stop sperm from getting to where she doesn't want it to go.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Because she can just get up and lay. Oh, that's so interesting. So we find that in the animals, like to go back to the duck, where it is more forcible and the males are really coercing that sexual behaviour, then you have to evolve a vagina that can handle that, that can sneakily... Well, that will give you the final say.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Right, but with some animals like alpacas, the sort of evolutionary arms race actually comes from the behaviour. Presumably, yeah. That you can just walk away, I'm done with this dribble. So it is interesting. We do often see, as you've talked about at the beginning of the show, you know, we often see sex as this battle where the slutty male is fighting to impregnate.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
But it's never described as slutty for the male. Like promiscuous is used for females that mate multiple times, but the male is just multiple matings.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
We've had this since Darwin, this very narrow view of what a female should and shouldn't be. Monogamous was the word that Darwin used to describe females. Coy, passive, chaste, loyal, dutiful mothers. But that's not what we see in the animal kingdom. Also, we haven't even touched on this, homosexuality and homosexual behaviors in animals. Very common. And there's...
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
many different ways to reproduce and be a male and a female in the world. And I think appreciating that diversity in the animal world will hopefully help us appreciate that diversity in the human world.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
And I'm so excited for you to tell us all about it after the break. Welcome back today on the show, The Wonderful World of Animal Vaginas. And we're here with Dr. Tiana Pirtle. So welcome back. Let's start from the beginning for you. So you were in the middle of a PhD studying evolutionary theories and you started noticing something a bit frustrating in some of the papers that you were reading.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
That's right. There's so much diversity within species, let alone amongst species.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Yeah, yeah. And yeah. The patriarchy has had scientific credence for too long from this very narrow view of males and females and reproductions.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
So when you look at all these rainbow vaginas, this rainbow of vaginas, do you have a favorite? Can you choose amongst your children?
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
But I says, yeah, the duck is one of my favorites as well, just because I love that story. of, you know, the secret weapon vagina and the female has the last laugh. Mm-hmm.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Vaginal Vignettes? It's had many different names over the years, but this year was the, yeah, Vaginal Vignettes.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Vaginal Vignettes, where you showcase all of these amazing vaginas. What's been the best reaction you've gotten so far?
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
They've all been the greatest reaction ever. What do they say about it? People love it. I've had a lot of women come up. I'm so glad to hear this story. It just makes me so much happier to have a vagina myself.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Yeah, it's, again, gives people insight into how diverse being female is.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
If you haven't been watching this video, you can find it on Spotify, also on Instagram and TikTok. We're going to put little snippets. of this video up so you can see these fabulous model vaginas. We're on science underscore VS. That's us on Instagram. And on TikTok, I'm Wendy Zuckerman. So I'm Wendy Zuckerman and I'll talk to you next time.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
I just noticed there was quite a difference in the way male animals and female animals were described, especially in terms of reproductive behavior and evolutionary strategies. The males are often described as these very active players. They're coercing, manipulating, harassing. And females, on the other hand, are described in very passive terminology.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
They're responding, reacting, even like adaptation is what males do and counter adaptations are what females do. Wait, what do you mean by that? So the male is adapting all these strategies and she's only relevant compared to what he's doing. And yes, there's an empirical bias in the way Western science has treated female animals historically. Starting with Darwin, but extending even before that.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Well, Aristotle, in fact, has described males as active and females as passives. So it extends all the way back to then. But it really was solidified by Darwin. He was developing his theory of sexual selection. And sexual selection is the struggle for mates, essentially, in how animals get mates.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
formed the foundation for how Darwin viewed female animals, describing them as coy and chaste and the thought that... An animal is chaste. A female animal couldn't be promiscuous was unacceptable, so they just ignored any sort of examples that would suggest otherwise. And it really, A, gave scientific credence to the patriarchy, but also kind of set...
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Western science on this trajectory of focusing on the males. They're doing the interesting things, evolving weaponry and behaviors and tactics.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
And cool penises. Yes. And the females, on the other hand, are just in the sidelines waiting for the males to do their thing and then working themselves around what the males decide. And the reality is that's not true.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
So to tell us all about this is Dr. Tiana Purtle at the University of Tasmania. Hi. Hi. Thanks for having me. And you should really watch this on video, which you can if you're watching this on Spotify, because Tiana brought props. Yes.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
At all. Okay, so you're reading about all of this, feeling scandalized, frustrated. How would we describe your emotions as you're kind of reckoning with this bias in science?
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
I suppose as you train in science, you're kind of given this line that science is objective. We all like to think we're objective observers of the world and we're testing theories ourselves. in an objective manner, but the reality is science is very biased.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
So these models all came from Dr. Patricia Brennan in the US, who's a phenomenal researcher and has made it her life mission to categorize as many animal vaginas as possible because the line that we often think
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
think about when it comes to penises and vaginas is that, you know, the penis is doing the thrusting, the ejaculating, and the vagina is just a passive tube sitting there ready to catch the penis and let the sperms go where they need to go. But that's not even remotely the case. And they're very diverse in function and form. Let's jump in. Okay, so let's start with the duck.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Yes, the duck is the classic example. And this is actually, I think, the vagina that launched a thousand ships. Patricia Brennan's line of research started from the duck vagina. From the duck. So this is the duck vagina. And you can see it's corkscrewed.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Do you feel like you're on a game show? It's corkscrewed. Okay, yes. Let me look at this. Okay, so science first understood not the duck vagina, but the duck penis. Yes.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
So what does the duck penis look like? Male ducks are quite unusual in the bird world, and they have penises. So most birds have cloacas, which are just like multi-orphous holes. Or multipurpose holes, and they do a cloacal kiss. So the birds just rub it together, transfer the little sperm, and flutter off. But ducks have these giant, fleshy, corkscrew organs that explode out of their body.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
It's like... It's impressive to observe. And... Like most animals, we've known what the penis looks like for a while. And no one thought to even look at what the vagina might look like that would handle a penis like that. Yes. So the male's penis is corkscrewed. Well, the vagina is... Also corkscrewed. And there's some like little side pockets, like some flaps and stuff.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
What's in the box? Well, this very, very special box is full of different animal vaginas. Woo! I may require a stabby implement. Yes. Not a penis. To open.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
So why does it have all these... The amazing thing is it's corkscrewed in the opposite direction of the penis. So... For a long time, and for some animal species, you think the penis and the vagina fit together, like the lock and key hypothesis. Yes. But this seems to be a vagina that's evolved to not accept the penis, and that's exactly what it can do.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
So male ducks can be quite coercive, to use a term that's often used to describe male animals.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
and the sex ratios tend to be skewed there's more males than females and I'll explain why in a second and that means that not every male gets a female partner for the season so the males that don't form these little bachelor gangs roving around looking for some females and when they find one they jump on her and force themselves on her and that's
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
why sex ratios can be skewed is that some females end up being killed in this process or harmed. Right. There's penises exploding everywhere. The female can't really do much about it on the outside, but she has her secret weapon, which is her vagina. And if, The female doesn't want the penises that are exploding at her.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
She can shift her body around so that the penis tips go into these little side pockets formed by the corkscrew. Or in some species, she can squeeze the muscles around and just fully expel the penis. And it works remarkably well. So in some duck species, about 40% of the matings a female will experience are these forced matings. Right. But only 2% to 5% of the ducklings are. are fathered by those.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
So of all the matings that she's having, up to 40% of them- In some species. In some species are these forced, these sort of gangs of bachelor ducks. But then when you look at Who's actually fathering the ducklings? It's only 2% to 5%?
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Wow. So the rest are from mates that were more consensual that she was into?
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Yeah, or the partner she's chosen for that season or other males she's gone out to solicit matings from.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
How interesting. And so without science having been able to know who was actually fathering these ducklings, you could see why this story would persist.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
The box. Oh, my gosh. I've never been sent a box with animal vaginas. Oops, and I might have just destroyed your pencil or your pen a little bit. That's fine. That's what today's episode's all about, isn't it? Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's coming out? What's coming out?
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Yeah, it's a great example of, you know, when you only look at half the story, you only get half the story.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
It's funny, I'm still hearing that males are the coercive, violent ones.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Yes. Yes. So it's not an untrue storyline, but there's females like hyenas are a great example of a female that kind of flips that story. So female hyenas are bigger, more aggressive, dominate the society. And they also have these giant eight-inch long clitorises that work like a pseudopenis. They look exactly like the male's penis. They even have fused labia that look like testicles. Wow.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Oh, wow. But there's no sperm inside. No, no, no. That's just the fused labia. It looks like it. And for a long time, actually, scientists really struggled to figure out what was going on with hyenas because they thought there were only males out there. But the female genitalia looks remarkably like the male. And they use these pseudopenises in dominance displays, greeting rituals.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and you're listening to Science Versus. Today on the show, animal sex. Why so much that we've been taught about it is wrong. The story that seems to have stuck in our heads about how animals have sex is that the male, with their spear-like willy, plunges into a passive vagina. But it turns out that the truth is so much more complicated and so much more fun.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
But it also gives them a very high degree over who's mating with them. It's like two socks, I guess, trying to push into each other. If they're full, they don't go in. So basically the female has to allow the male to mate with her. It's like I've heard it described as kind of like inverting a sock, like gets pushed and she relaxes it and the penis gets to push in there. Oh, wow.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
But it gives her full control over what's going on. Is there a downside to this amazing? Funny you say that.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
This amazing control does come at a cost. So they'll urinate through the pseudopenis. They use it in their dominance displays. They make through it. But they also have to give birth through it. And it's been described as pushing a cantaloupe through a garden hose.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Wow. Okay. After the break, we're going to learn about one creature that has a genital shield. I think it's my favorite, actually. It's coming up.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Who have we got here? Well, meet the family. Yes. Let's see. We've got the alpaca, common dolphin, couple rattlesnakes, dogfish shark, harbor porpoise, and a domestic duck.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Welcome back. Today on the show, Dr. Tiana Purtle is walking us through vaginas of the animal kingdom. It's really an evolutionary battle between both vaginas and penises, which when you think about evolution, that is how obviously it worked, right? It doesn't really make sense that only one would be evolving.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Yeah, and also it makes sense that they wouldn't necessarily be evolving in the same direction together always. Obviously, both males and females want to reproduce, but females have to invest a bit more resources, time, and energy into reproduction relative to males. And that's where you get the sexual conflict where the males and the females' interests don't always align. So...
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
That's why you get some of these wild tactics and different physiology, morphology and behaviors. So tell me how the water strider accomplishes it. The water strider is a great strider. story of kind of sexual conflict, evolutionary arms race in action. So water strutters are bugs that sit on top of the ponds and water. The females have these genital shields.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
So, and I do have a model of this, but unfortunately didn't make it on the... You can't fly with that sort of weaponry. But she's got her ovipositor that sits inside of her abdomen. Mm-hmm. And then the ovipositor... The ovipositor where the eggs go. Yay. And if she wants to mate, she will... push it out, and it kind of opens, and the male can deliver the sperm.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
But if it's in this position, there's no chance the male gets to mate with her.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
Amazing. Oh my God. Okay. So wait, how, wait, that looks like a penis. How is this a vagina?
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
So the female has evolved this morphology that gives her full control over who's mating with her. She has full say over who's going to father her offspring. But the males have evolved this counter strategy. And historically, it would have been described the other way around. Yeah.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
So the male can't mate with female unless she is fully on board. Open for business. So the male's response strategy is he will, to use those terms that we said are often describing males, he will threaten her by, he sits on top of her and taps the water, and that will alert all the predators, right? In the water. Right.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
So these are all the internal negative space inside the vagina. So how did they make them? So how these got made was an animal died and the vagina was excised from the body and then filled with a silicone. So it created this mold of what is inside. The space that would be inside.
Science Vs
When Vaginas Attack!
And the predators will come up, and because the female's on the bottom, she has a higher chance of being eaten. So he'll just sit there. She can't fly away because he's sitting on her. And he'll just tap, do this little threatening tap dance until she either opens her ovipositor, gets eaten, or they both die. Leave. Wow. What a strategy.