Not with a Penis, a Thousand Male Feet Use a Pair of Feet to Marry Page all

KOMPAS.com – Centipede or Millipede is a close relative of the centipede, and includes arthropods like other insects. This animal is also quite unique, because it has dozens of legs under its small body.

Despite having many legs, in fact Centipede tend to move more slowly than other animals.

They will eat the surrounding plants that have decayed, so they do not need the speed of movement to catch their prey.

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For a long time scientists in the world have tried to research how the way a thousand feet mate. Similar to animals such as birds or bees, scientists also observe the breeding process of millipedes.

You may also be one of those people who wonders, how a thousand feet married with his partner? To answer this, animal kamasutra This time discusses the millipede marriage process.

In a study published in the journal Arthropoda Structure and Development In 2020, scientists are using the latest imaging techniques to observe the genitals of a fairly complex millipede.

“This is the first time we have been able to understand the mechanism of this millipede insertion, how the male and female organs interact with each other,” explains study author and curator at the Field Museum in Chicago, Petra Sierwald.

“Before, we didn’t know how a thousand feet put sperm into it,” he continued.

As reported by Science DailyThursday (13/2/2020) there are more than 13,000 different species of millipedes, which have been recorded in which they have a unique way of mating with their partners.

Sierwald and his team focused their research on the genus Pseudopolydesmusthe half-inch-long brown millipede from North America.

The interesting thing about these millipedes is their behavior that seems very eager to mate, even when in the laboratory.

“One of the problems with millipedes is that they do a lot of digging in the ground, and if you get them out you’re bothering them and they’re going to stop what they’re doing,” explains Sierwald.

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In most species of millipedes, including Pseudopolydesmus, The male’s testicles are located along the back of his leg.

Meanwhile, the gonopods – a special pair of legs used to insert sperm into the female’s body, are far behind the legs.

Gonopods are the seventh pair of legs which are very important for identifying types of animals such as millipedes. Legs that can function as genitals, can generally be found in the seventh ring segment area.

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To remove gonopods, the feet of a thousand males must first ejaculate and then release the bluish -colored sperm.

Once the male gonopod is covered with a blue fluid, it is ready to insert it into the female’s vulva.

“He has two openings, one on each side between his second pair of legs. We don’t know for this whole group which part to put and where to put in the female,” Sierwald said.

After the mating process takes place, the female vulva is covered with a sticky secretion to keep the sperm inside.

Furthermore, when the female millipede lays eggs it will be coated with the stored sperm from her body.

Scientists use imaging technique to examine millipede genitalia

“Before this study, we really didn’t know where the secretions came from. I always thought it was from the male, because I thought the male wanted to seal the female so she couldn’t mate again.”

The male and female millipedes will cling to each other, with their feet covering the mating process.

So Sierwald and her colleague from the Field Museum, Stephanie Ware, experimented with different lighting and imaging techniques.

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Ware took several millipede photos at different distances, then used a computer program to combine them. So that all the small details are much clearer, including the millipedes’ genitals.

To get more information about the structure of the millipede genitalia, University of California Davis first author Xavier Zahnle performed a micro-CT scan.

He put the millipedes in a test tube and performed a CT scan on them, without dissecting the specimen and the body remained intact.

“The CT scan took pictures of the slices, and Xavier worked on a whole bunch of complicated software programs to analyze the slices and put them back together,” Sierwald said.

All of these images of millipedes’ genitals help researchers know how the Pseudopolydesmus millipede mating process.

“There are 16 orders of millipedes in the world, and for most of them, we have very little idea of ​​what the vulva looks like,” he said.

In addition to providing a better understanding of the sexual behavior of millipedes, Sierwald hopes the study will enable scientists to understand the relationships between different millipede species, as well as shed light on how they evolved.

“The millipedes (Pseudopolydesmus) can tell us about the geological history of North America. When mountains and rivers formed, millipede groups would separate from each other and develop into new species,” concluded Sierwald.

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