Entomologists shed light on bizarre mating mechanisms of native twisted-winged parasites

Twisted-winged parasites of the species Stylops ovinae reproduce using so-called traumatic insemination. Entomologists of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Christian Albrechts University of Kiel published on this phenomenon in the new edition of the science magazine Scientific Reports. To inseminate the eggs, the males injure the endoparasitic females with their hook-shaped penis and inject the seminal fluid directly into their body cavity.

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