Fellatio Among Fruit Bats

Scientists observing the short-nosed fruit bat Cynopterus sphinx in southern China’s Guangdong Province report that the females prolong sex by licking the shaft of their mate’s penis during dorsoventral copulation (both mammals facing in the same direction).

“Males never withdrew their penis when it was licked by the mating partner,” the researchers wrote in a paper published on Wednesday in the electronic journal PLoS ONE. “Mating pairs spent significantly more time in copulation if the female licked her mate’s penis than if fellatio was absent.”

Bats being bats, the “near-threatened” C. sphinx are also upside down as this occurs (see drawing by Mei Wang). --Don Troop

(Tip of the wing to Annals of Improbable Research.)