![]() "We think that the positioning of the bodies of the males and females are hugely important in terms of the amount of fertilization success," Orbach said. ![]() Diane Kelly of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Mauricio Solano of Tufts University also collaborated on the work. But the images revealed that the bottlenose dolphin penis has to navigate around the female's vaginal fold for successful insemination, Orbach and her colleague, Patricia Brennan, of Mount Holyoke College reported. The researchers revealed their findings only for the bottlenose dolphins at the Chicago conference the research has yet to be published, Orbach said, so they are not yet making their full results public. Both sets of genitals were then scanned with computed tomography (CT) the researchers could see how they fit together. The penis was then inserted inside the thawed vaginas. The penises were pumped full of saline using a nitrogen air pump and then put in formalin to "fix" them in the erect position. Then, they froze the actual vaginal tissue and thawed and stained it with iodine right before their experiments. They created molds of the vaginas with silicon so they could understand its shape. The researchers removed the reproductive tracts from bottlenose dolphins ( Tursiops truncates), common dolphins ( Delphinus delphis), harbor porpoises ( Phocoena phocoena) and harbor seals ( Phoca vitulina) that had died of natural causes. Orbach and her colleagues wanted to understand how seals, porpoises and whales pull it off. Whales, dolphins and other marine mammals also have to manage sex while floating in water, and they have to keep seawater out of the uterus. Marine mammals in particular are known for their twisty, curvy vaginas.
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