Female Dolphins Discovered to Have Human-Like Working Clitoris

According to a research published in the journal Current Biology on January 10, 2022, female dolphins have a functioning clitoris.

Clitoris-like structures, which are found in the vaginal entrance of bottlenose dolphins, have many sensory nerves and erectile bodies, according to the results.

Professor Patricia Brennan, an associate professor of biological sciences at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, said: "The dolphin clitoris has many features to suggest that it functions to provide pleasure to females."

Functional Clitoris in Female Dolphins

Dolphins have long been recognized as extremely gregarious animals. They engage in sexual acts at all times of the year as a means of establishing and sustaining social relationships, according to Scitech Daily.

A clitoris in the vagina of female dolphins has also been observed, which would make stimulation during copulation more feasible. As well as the snout, flipper, and fluke, female sharks have also been reported to rub their clitorises on each other's bodies.

Brennan and colleagues opted to focus their attention on the dolphin clitoris in their latest investigation. 11 female dolphins had died of natural causes, so they examined their clitorises very thoroughly.

They checked to see whether there were any erectile structures present, and if so, what kind. They also examined the distribution of nerve fibers in the tissue. They found evidence to support the idea that dolphins have a functional clitoris.

Similarities Between Dolphin and Human Clitoris

According to Brennan, erectile tissue in the clitoris of the dolphin is filled with blood much like the human clitoris.

As animals mature, the structure of the erectile tissue changes, indicating that it has a functional purpose. Studies also demonstrate that the clitoris body contains numerous nerves and many free nerve endings immediately beneath the skin, which is significantly thinner than the neighboring skin in this location than elsewhere.

In addition, they discovered genital corpuscles that are similar to those seen in the human clitoris and penis tip, which are known to have a role in the pleasure response.

The erectile bodies of dolphins, according to Brennan, are "surprisingly comparable" to the erectile bodies of human beings.

According to Brennan, it was startling to find how similar the dolphin pelvic forms were to human pelvises. Another unexpected finding was the size of the clitoris' nerves. It was found that several had diameters more than half a millimeter.

Evolution of Vaginas in Dolphins

While researching the development of dolphin vaginas, Brennan and colleagues were interested in the dolphin clitoris.

"Every time we dissected a vagina, we would see this very large clitoris, and we were curious whether anyone had examined it in detail to see if it worked like a human clitoris," she says. "We knew that dolphins have sex not just to reproduce, but also to solidify social bonds, so it seemed likely that the clitoris could be functional."

The clitoris and the pleasures of female sexuality in nature have received little attention from scientists, according to the researchers. It wasn't until the 1990s that the clitoris of the human body was completely understood.

Brennan argues that the lack of attention paid to women's sexuality has left the world with an incomplete picture of sexual practices. It is crucial to study and comprehend animal sex in nature since it might have major medicinal implications in the future.

In order to fill in these gaps, Brennan and her colleagues will continue to study dolphins and other animals' clitoris and genitalia.

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