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Title
  • en A biological switching valve evolved in the female of a sex-role reversed cave insect to receive multiple seminal packages
Creator
    • en Kamimura, Yoshitaka
    • en Lienhard, Charles
    • en Ferreira, Rodrigo L.
    • en Blanke, Alexander
Accessrights open access
Rights
  • en Copyright Yoshizawa et al. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
  • https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
  • en Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Subject
  • NDC 468
Description
  • Abstract en We report a functional switching valve within the female genitalia of the Brazilian cave insect Neotrogla. The valve complex is composed of two plate-like sclerites, a closure element, and in-and-outflow canals. Females have a penis-like intromittent organ to coercively anchor males and obtain voluminous semen. The semen is packed in a capsule, whose formation is initiated by seminal injection. It is not only used for fertilization but also consumed by the female as nutrition. The valve complex has two slots for insemination so that Neotrogla can continue mating while the first slot is occupied. In conjunction with the female penis, this switching valve is a morphological novelty enabling females to compete for seminal gifts in their nutrient-poor cave habitats through long copulation times and multiple seminal injections. The evolution of this switching valve may have been a prerequisite for the reversal of the intromittent organ in Neotrogla.
Publisher en eLife Sciences Publications
Date
    Issued2018-10-16
Language
  • eng
Resource Type journal article
Version Type VoR
Identifier HDL http://hdl.handle.net/2115/72090
Relation
  • isIdenticalTo DOI https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.39563
Journal
    • PISSN 2050-084X
      • en Elife
      • Volume Number7 Page Starte39563
File
Oaidate 2023-07-26