To everyone who's about to comment:
We don't believe you!
(ADDENDUM - Unless your name is Buster Gonad, of course)
Biologists gasp at lemur's improbably colossal bollocks
Scientists are marvelling at a lemur with testicles so large that were a human chap to carry equivalent plums in his trouser department, they'd be the size of a couple of grapefruit. The average male northern giant mouse lemur (Mirza zaza) tips the scales at just 280g, but has "an average testes volume of 15.48 cubic …
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Saturday 4th July 2015 17:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: "To everyone who's about to comment:" Actually I am, for one, highly relieved...........
Mucho moons ago my best mate had the snip, however, for whatever reason something went a bit pete tong, his chicken skin purse started to slowly fill with blood. As well as immense swelling his knackers were blue black, like a giant bruise and I shit you not folks when I say his scrotum was the size of a grapefruit... Off to A&E we went tout suite.
So, drain fitted, swelling resolved. Few weeks later, time to have drain removed, however, the drain has somehow become attached internally, like tissue has grown over/around it. His missus and myself heard that poor bastard let loose a proper blood curdling scream when that was removed with no anaesthetic...
Makes me wince to this day.
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Saturday 4th July 2015 21:35 GMT TheVogon
Re: To everyone who's about to comment:
"Scientists are marvelling at a lemur with testicles so large that were a human chap to carry equivalent plums in his trouser department, they'd be the size of a couple of grapefruit."
What a load of bollocks. They obviously havnt seen http://assets.noisey.com/content-images/contentimage/no-slug/b6afea3169d545ae15a1d6aaeb718044.jpg (NSFW)
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Friday 3rd July 2015 16:53 GMT Turtle
Tanuki.
The Japanese tanuki is also known for the same thing. I don't know whose is bigger. I also don't know how much folklore concerns lemurs but there's quite a bit concerning tanuki. Apparently statues of tanuki are very popular in Japan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_raccoon_dog - and of course look at the pictures.
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Saturday 4th July 2015 10:55 GMT Metrognome
Well, it all has to do with the likelihood of being faithful and the amount of rozzering you're likely to encounter. Huge gorillas have testes way smaller than our on account that they stay faithful whereas smaller chimps have massive bollocks on account that they'd pleasure anything that walks past them.
The clincher of the story: Nature intended it for human males to be modestly unfaithful on account of their gonad size. (Not sure it'll stand up in court lads, but don't say I didn't try)
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Saturday 4th July 2015 11:24 GMT Anonymous Coward
Reminds me of the first saucy joke I ever heard...
Bloke goes to doctor and says "Doc, I've got a big ball, but I'm embarrassed to show you." The doc says "Look, I'm a professional, there's no need for embarrassment." "But you'll laugh, like all the others." "No, says. the doc, "Just show me." So matey hauls out grapefruit-sized bollock and lumps it on the desk. The doctor takes one look and howls with laughter. "I knew it," says the bloke. "Now I'll definitely not show you my big ball."
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Saturday 4th July 2015 14:49 GMT Six_Degrees
"The average male northern giant mouse lemur (Mirza zaza) tips the scales at just 280g, but has "an average testes volume of 15.48 cubic centimetres", the BBC explains.
Accordingly, "5.5 per cent of the male lemurs’ bodies were testes" by weight, shaming blokes who can boast just 0.05 per cent of their mass dangling between their legs."
Uh - how are weight and volume related here? And, if the units are wrong and the second figure is really supposed to be grams instead of cubic centimeters, did they really whack a bunch of lemur's balls off to weigh them?
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Monday 6th July 2015 14:21 GMT Dr Dan Holdsworth
Sperm competition...
What is probably going on here is sperm competition of some description. The basic idea for any male is to be the man who fathers the most kids, and animals tend to solve this in only a few basic ways. Gorillas do it by mate guarding; there is one male that mates in any one group, and that is all; gorillas are terribly under-endowed even by primate standards with a 1.5" penis, and testes the size of peas.
Chimps go to the other extreme, like this lemur. Enormous testes and a mating system whereby most males in the group that the female permits to have a go, do have a go. The easiest way for males to compete is to maximise the amount of sperm cells they put out, absent of any other mechanism.
Humans, as always, have to be different in mating methods. Human have the largest penis, size for size, of any primate, it is structured differently to most primate penises, and seems to be designed to displace semen from the female genital tract; humans don't produce as much sperm as do chimps, but we produce a great deal more ejaculate with better quality sperm, plus human semen also contains a lot of hormones like Follicle Stimulating Hormone (which stimulates ovulation), so there may be some biochemical warfare going on in humans as well.
What is obvious with mating systems is that old ideas such as birds being very monogamous is complete bollocks. Species like alpine dunnocks also have (in the breeding season) enormous testes, mostly because every male dunnock in any area is mating with any available female in the area, at the same time as trying to stay out of the way of the alpha males in that area. Male dunnocks are thus extremely busy chaps in the egg-laying season, and also very busy afterwards making sure to take food to all the nests where they may have fathered offspring.
I shall leave it to some other intrepid biologist to describe what ducks get up to.
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Monday 6th July 2015 20:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
seems to be designed to displace semen from the female genital tract
Dr Dan thank you for the above phrase, I was vaguely aware that males indulging in "sloppy seconds" were more likely to be successful in fatherhood than ones having first dibs, but perhaps rather naively puzzled as to why that should be the case.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
