Male flies have penises covered with spines and hooks. To figure out what the purpose of those spines are, researchers Michal Polak and Arash Rashed removed the spines to see what would happen.
The conclusion is that the fly's penis hairs act as Velcro, to grasp the female long enough to inject sperm. Now you know. Link -via Treehugger
Previously at Neatorama: 30 Strangest Animal Mating Habits.
Photo manipulated at Speechable.
Their spines are too small to cut off by hand. So the duo used a laser instead, wielding the light with such surgical precision that they could cut off a third of each millimetre-long spine, or the entire structure.
They found that a partial shave did nothing, but the full treatment significantly reduced the odds of the males mating with females.
The conclusion is that the fly's penis hairs act as Velcro, to grasp the female long enough to inject sperm. Now you know. Link -via Treehugger
Previously at Neatorama: 30 Strangest Animal Mating Habits.
Photo manipulated at Speechable.
Apart from the WTF purpose of the experiment, they could have figured It out, cats for example have similar devices for similar reasons.
And I agree with M&R.
Also, they are flies. We kill hundreds of them every day without any compunction. They have no self awareness and they live for just a couple of days.
The New and Improved LAZER 9000!
A quicker, more precise bris isn't possible.
I agree, pointless and kinda cruel, even to a fly.