insects – GOLLYGEE!

Ed Yong reports on a species of insect where the female has the penis and the male has a vagina.

Neotrogla mating.

Ed writes:

This picture of two mating insects comes with an unexpected twist. The one on top is a female, and she has a penis. The one on the bottom is a male, and he has the equivalent of a vagina. During sexual bouts that can last for 40 to 70 hours, she penetrates him and uses her genitals not to deliver sperm, but to collect it.

The 3-millimetre-long species is called Neotrogla curvata, and it lives in Brazilian caves. There are four Neotrogla species and the females all have penises. They belong to a group of insects called barkflies or barklice—closely related to lice and true bugs, and only distantly related to actual flies.

…

Neotrogla’s set-up is very different. The female has a penis-like protrusion called a gynosome, which is erectile and curved. The male has no such organ; he has an internal chamber instead. When she penetrates him during sex, he delivers sperm into a duct in her gynosome, which leads to a storage organ. He still ejaculates, but he does so inside his own body, not hers.

Could insects hold the key to traffic management in the future. Some seem to think so considering the efficiency that bugs like ants manage to move in large numbers with few traffic jams. The newest idea is to have a sensor that communicates with the cars around you and manages traffic flow. From Mashable:

It’s called a “virtual” traffic lights because instead of the lights being at intersections, they’re located in each car, on windshield. The algorithm uses information collected from GPS devices, short-range communicators and other sensors to manage whether a driver sees a green, yellow or red light on her windshield.

In simulations, the algorithm managed the flow of cars in a way similar to how insects manage themselves. In ant and terminte colonies, the large group always gets to go first.

“In such self-organizing biological systems, the colony can perform all the vital functions it needs (such as foraging, moving, adjusting to changing environmental conditions, protecting itself from predators, etc.) through the cooperation of the members of its colony,” Tonguz explained in an email to DNews.

As soon as the biggest group cleared out, the next group was allowed to go.

Through the simulations, the scientists found that traffic drive time was reduced for urban commuters by 40-60%. The newest set of algorithms being tested will also take into account pedestrians and cyclists in the flow of traffic.

GOLLYGEE!

Tag: insects

the woman wears the pants

driving like bugs