In the waters off the Mexican coast, scientists from North Carolina State University (USA) have discovered a fish that has four hook-shaped hooks on its penis . The new species has been christened Gambusia quadruncus , and biologist Brian Langerhans and his colleagues explain in the Journal of Fish Biology , it lives in a biodiversity hotspot and separated from its closest relative more than a million years ago. . Having males have four hooks on their genitals can help increase reproductive success. "Traditionally, reproduction is more expensive in females, who therefore try at all costs to avoid mating with" low-quality "males," the researcher clarifies. In males, however, evolution tends to favor their mating with as many females as possible .
In Gambusia , females have a mass of tissue that blocks part of the genital orifice, which according to Langerhans "implies that either the female has to voluntarily allow the male to mate or the male would have to have evolved to counteract this difficulty" . The latter is what the newly discovered fish seems to have done with its particular "hooks", which "help overcome female resistance and allow sperm to be transferred more effectively", as the researcher emphasizes.
