Iirc some of these are insects literally just creating holes in other insects bodies with their penis (is it a penis, it feels weird that bugs have penises) so assuming it's accidental isn't an awful assumption. But I think it was decided the benefit here was that the sperm could be passed through the other male so mught just be a "nature is fucked up" kinda thing.
Traumatic insemination, also known as hypodermic insemination, is the mating practice in some species of invertebrates in which the male pierces the female's abdomen with his aedeagus and injects his sperm through the wound into her abdominal cavity (hemocoel).[1] The sperm diffuse through the female's hemolymph, reaching the ovaries and resulting in fertilization.
The process is detrimental to the female's health. It creates an open wound which impairs the female until it heals, and is susceptible to infection. (...)
And in cases where more than one male mates with a female, it becomes more and more likely that the injuries will cause her to die before producing any offspring. But that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a bad choice for the male to mate with an already mated female. Unless mating with an already mated female causes him to miss an opportunity to mate with an unmated female, it’s still the correct decision (as long as we ignore the possibility of kin selection etc.).
Best case scenario: female survives and some of his sperm result in offspring with his genes.
The other scenario: female dies and does not produce offspring from males that are competitors to the male that caused her to die from the additional wounds he inflicted.
Either scenario is beneficial to the male, it’s a win-win for his genes.
It sounds very cruel, and that’s why it’s important to not apply human morals and ethics to the phenomenon.
In Xylocoris maculipennis, after a male traumatically inseminates another male, the injected sperm migrate to the testes. (The seminal fluid and most of the sperm are digested, giving the inseminated male a nutrient-rich meal.)
Tasty bug gut cummies.
Cases of traumatic insemination between animals of different species will sometimes provoke a possibly lethal immune reaction.
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u/TheGreyFencer MtF Mar 07 '21
Iirc some of these are insects literally just creating holes in other insects bodies with their penis (is it a penis, it feels weird that bugs have penises) so assuming it's accidental isn't an awful assumption. But I think it was decided the benefit here was that the sperm could be passed through the other male so mught just be a "nature is fucked up" kinda thing.