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Evolutionary biology

Caught right-handed

Nature volume 444, pages 689–692 (2006)Cite this article

Are two penises better than one? Not so, implies a study of doubly endowed earwigs. An ancestral behavioural preference for the right penis might have facilitated the loss of the left in species that arose later.

Human males may sometimes wonder about the size of their penis, but they rarely fret about which one to use. Not so for many arthropods, among them fairy shrimp1, dragonflies2 and spiders3, some of which face a delicate choice before each tryst: “Left or right tonight?” Doubly endowed lizards4 and snakes5 seem ambivalent, although they tend to alternate between the right and left of their two members. Males of two theridiid spider genera (Tidarren and Echinotheridion) have a particularly radical solution to their quandary: they voluntarily rip off a palp at random and eat it, leaving only one behind.

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Figure 1: Earwig penis number, orientation and evolution.

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  1. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, T6G 2E9, Alberta, Canada

    A. Richard Palmer

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Palmer, A. Caught right-handed. Nature 444, 689–692 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/444689a

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