How birds lost their penises

[knocker]

Fascinating.

 

In animals that reproduce by internal fertilization, as humans do, you'd think a penis would be an organ you couldn't really do without, evolutionarily speaking. Surprisingly, though, most birds do exactly that, and now researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on June 6 have figured out where, developmentally speaking, birds' penises have gone.

 

 

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/cp-hbl053013.php