Sea snails mate by piercing each other’s heads

KOMPAS.com – sea ​​snail or sea slug is one of the animals with a unique marriage ritual.

Animals found living on the sand in this shallow sea, channel affection to their partners during mating.

However, moments later they would poke each other’s heads. One of them is in species sea ​​snail recently discovered by researchers in Australia.

Animal Kamasutra this time discuss more deeply related the way sea snails mateand how they do it.

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Reported from Science NewsTuesday (11/12/2013) marine behavioral ecologist from Monash University in Clayton, Australia, Rolanda Lange discovered that a new species of bright yellow, red, and white sea slug disperses sperm in an unusual way.

Actually, there are hundreds of species of sea slugs, but the animal found in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, identified as belonging to the genus Siphopteron.

This species is called Siphopteron handsomewith a body length of only 2 to 4 millimeters.

Like most sea snails, Siphopteron handsome are hermaphrodites, which means they have two sex organs, male and female.

In a study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B In 2013, researchers said that when the snail mate, one organ would send sperm to the female genitalia of another snail.

A few seconds later, each snail inserts a second organ called a needle-shaped stylet.

Lange and his team say each snail inserts a needle-like stylet into the area around its partner’s eye. Although it looks painful, these injected snails don’t dodge.

“Maybe they’re busy putting on their own stylet,” Lange said.

Inserting the stylet itself can take up to 40 minutes or more for the sea slug to transfer the sperm.

Read also: Life is squeezed by rocks, barnacles rely on a very long penis for mating

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