The YouTuber DirtyBiology has tackled the subject that’s been on our minds: the sex lives of dinosaurs.
How did dinosaurs have sex? Did they have a penis? A cloaca? What were their criteria for sexiness? And the spiky dinos, like stegosaurs, how did they manage to mate without hurting themselves? As for the heaviest ones, did they not find the Kamasutra a bit of a struggle?
A fossil no longer has any genitalia. So all we can do is speculate, based on closely related extant species, such as crocodiles and birds, and on morphological details of the skeleton.
The sex lives of dinosaurs: investigation
I’ll leave you to watch the video to discover the course of his investigation and his conclusions:
The pickup techniques of dinosaurs
For horned dinosaurs, the shape and size of the male’s horns, which also allowed him to face off against his rivals, was probably a seduction asset.
But for many species, the main criterion for sexiness was most certainly the plumage. In fact, palaeontologists have discovered more than twenty species of feathered dinosaurs. And in birds, the male’s dazzling feathers are often a decisive attribute for charming the female.
The sex organs of dinosaurs
The exact shape and appearance of dinosaurs’ sex organs remains a mystery. After all, these soft tissues don’t fossilise.
But we can deduce an approximation of what the dinos’ sex organs looked like by observing their closest living relatives: birds and crocodiles.
A characteristic common to both branches, and therefore very likely also present in dinos: a cloaca.
Crocodiles have a penis, which remains hidden inside their cloaca when they’re not using it. As for birds, some are devoid of a phallus, and reproduce through a “cloacal kiss”: the male and female press their cloacas together. But the most ancestral species are indeed equipped with a dick.
So it’s very likely that male dinos were also equipped with penises.
The Kamasutra of dinosaurs
When it comes to the Kamasutra of dinos, several types of morphologies need to be taken into account:
The very large dinos
For the very large dinos, the issue is their weight. How did these big beasts manage to get on top of each other without wrecking themselves or squashing each other flat? The male probably rested one of his legs on the female’s back.
How did the female manage to support such a weight? Well, Mrs Dino was used to walking, placing one foot on the ground while lifting the other, and vice versa. In short, carrying the weight of a dinosaur on one leg was no problem for her. So there’s no reason she’d struggle to carry a dinosaur and a half on two legs.
The stegosaurs
The Kamasutra of stegosaurs, with their spike-covered backs, is more mysterious. It’s out of the question for the male to get on top of the female, lest he impale himself or castrate himself on her spikes. The female may have lain on her side to allow the male to penetrate her.
The sex lives of dinosaurs: going further
To learn more: an article from Scientific American on dinosaur sexuality, and a thesis devoted to this subject.
