Clearly Potent. Red-brown Longhorn Beetles, Stictoleptura rubra, on Potentilla recta, Sulphur Cinquefoil, Jochumshof, Steyl, Limburg, The Netherlands
One of the 'cutest', bowdlerised but descriptive words for the crystal-clear appendage that you see at the end of the top Longhorn Beetle in this photo is an 'intromittent organ'. Ordinary people like you and me would call it a penis or probably by one of those well-known four-letter words (in Dutch, incidentally, usually three-letter ones). The scientific term for the beetle organ is 'aedeagus' - New-latin from the ancient Greek for 'privy parts' and 'leading' or even 'thrusting' - and it was coined in 1860 by a learned French entomologist.
But for a lot of reasons 'penis' is confusing in this context. One is that this kind of beetle sex is not fricative - if that's the right word; moreover there's no sudden burst but rather a kind of 'seepage' into or retrieval of sperm packets by the female organ which will open them, as it were, at its own leisure.
Our Two Longhorn Beetles are putting on a nice show on Potentilla recta, Sulphur Cinquefoil.
If you examine that 'intromittent organ' in the photo carefully you will note a sheath which is apparently quite hard. At its top is a so-called 'internal sac' that contains those sperm packets. This aedeagus was withdrawn as I watched, and our partners soon went their own ways.
Clearly Potent. Red-brown Longhorn Beetles, Stictoleptura rubra, on Potentilla recta, Sulphur Cinquefoil, Jochumshof, Steyl, Limburg, The Netherlands
One of the 'cutest', bowdlerised but descriptive words for the crystal-clear appendage that you see at the end of the top Longhorn Beetle in this photo is an 'intromittent organ'. Ordinary people like you and me would call it a penis or probably by one of those well-known four-letter words (in Dutch, incidentally, usually three-letter ones). The scientific term for the beetle organ is 'aedeagus' - New-latin from the ancient Greek for 'privy parts' and 'leading' or even 'thrusting' - and it was coined in 1860 by a learned French entomologist.
But for a lot of reasons 'penis' is confusing in this context. One is that this kind of beetle sex is not fricative - if that's the right word; moreover there's no sudden burst but rather a kind of 'seepage' into or retrieval of sperm packets by the female organ which will open them, as it were, at its own leisure.
Our Two Longhorn Beetles are putting on a nice show on Potentilla recta, Sulphur Cinquefoil.
If you examine that 'intromittent organ' in the photo carefully you will note a sheath which is apparently quite hard. At its top is a so-called 'internal sac' that contains those sperm packets. This aedeagus was withdrawn as I watched, and our partners soon went their own ways.