According to a recent study orchestrated by various biological scientists and college professors, female snakes have a functional clitoris and can even be aroused. The information was presented to the public following a series of tests that focused on a shortlist of snake groups: Pythonidaes, Elapids, Colubridae, and Viperids. When it comes to scientific research on snakes, most of the examinations have been geared toward the male organs. Thus, many doubted the existence of a clitoris in snakes, suggesting that the females possessed vestigial scent glands for the sole purpose of reproduction.
“It’s quite a taboo area," Megan Folwell, one of the study's leaders and a doctoral student at the University of Adelaide in Australia. "Female genitalia is not an easy subject to bring up sometimes, and I think people were happy saying ‘it doesn’t exist. There’s no need for [a] snake to have one...“People weren’t looking, and it was hard to find. It’s not the easiest structure to see in some species.”
Folwell went on to say that female snakes have a two-part clitoris to provide “sensation to the female snake during courtship and copulation, which might promote longer and more frequent mating leading to increased fertilization success.” It could also help the female snake decide if she'll allow the mating process to continue or if she wants things to come to a halt.
After the study was published in a scientific journal called Proceedings of the Royal Society, Kurt Schwenk, a biology and ecology professor at the University of Connecticut, shared his thoughts on the subject matter, with a further explanation regarding snake's erogenous zone and its functionality.
“It empowers the female to make decisions that allow her to control the copulation and which male she copulates with,” Schwenk said. “There’s been a tendency historically to see females of other species, well not just other species, as passive recipients of male copulatory behavior or even victims.”
In the end, the study revealed that snakes have two clitorises to complement the dual organs of their male counterparts. Some female snakes have been known to strangle and/or eat their male snakes after the mating process is complete.
Source: Science Alert
