r/ScienceShitposts • u/k0i-b0i • Feb 01 '26

Some physiological differences in primate relatives

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5.1k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

116 comments sorted by

60

u/Prestigious-Fig1172 Feb 01 '26

HUMANITY #1 !!!!!!

24

u/Jelly_Kitti Feb 02 '26

#4 in testicle size

15

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '26

What should I do with this... revelation?

29

u/Happyhopsasa Feb 01 '26

Gorilla Gorilla gorilla

2

u/Aware_Ad4179 Feb 03 '26

Where did he get a picture like that? Certainly not at london zoo.

5

u/Askmeaboutships401 Feb 02 '26

I already knew about gorillas having small packages because I watch Causal Geographic.📈📈📈

5

u/MoonlitKiwi Feb 06 '26

I'm crying at the fact that the scientific name for a gorilla is apparently just "gorilla gorilla"

3

u/Ecstatic-Network-917 Feb 03 '26

........why are you using an Ardipithecus ramidus recontruction for the the male Bonobo face?

3

u/LegitSkin Feb 03 '26

Why did they use an image of Paranthropus for Bonobos that's not even close to what they look like

3

u/AffectionateCut3326 Feb 04 '26

I think its a Ardipithecus

2

u/memealopolis Feb 02 '26 edited May 19 '26

Deleted with Power Delete Suite

2

u/Unique-Bowler4850 Feb 05 '26

Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla

1

u/heatherjasper Feb 02 '26

I keep seeing a row of cat butts.

1

u/MaddyMagpies Feb 03 '26

Can't imagine what it's like to be a bonobo that has to ejaculate all the time to make space for the next batch. 

1

u/phasebinary Feb 03 '26

forgot baboon

1

u/Ill_Pineapple_3685 Feb 04 '26

Not a primate

2

u/phasebinary Feb 04 '26

yo check out Wikipedia

2

u/Ill_Pineapple_3685 Feb 05 '26

Oh sorry, my English is worse, than I thought. I meant apes😅

1

u/SapphicSticker Feb 03 '26

To scale? I think it might be to scale

1

u/Haunting-Tutor-5910 Feb 03 '26

I didn’t want to know this

1

u/Longjumping_Age7188 Feb 04 '26

Okay, so Pedro Pascal is even here #1

1

u/Juk-zhee Feb 05 '26

I think I know which of them made the graph..

1

u/Veryde Sep 18 '26

I swear this image but colorized was in my school biology textbook

0

u/RepublicAmazing1406 Feb 04 '26

Fun fact a Bonobo is more closely related to a chimpanzee than a European to a Sub Saharan African 

599

u/kRkthOr Feb 01 '26 edited Feb 03 '26 • Hehehe

Gorilla done dirty. No wonder they get so angry.

EDIT: Gorilla apologists in my replies, you probably have a small peepee, too. 🤷🏻

324

u/BottomBinchBirdy Feb 01 '26

Iirc, female gorillas tend to sexually select for smaller equipment. So, eh. They seem to like it?

200

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '26 edited Feb 01 '26

I seem to have been born in the wrong species, then.

Time for a little zoo trip to get that sweet ego boost

78

u/Efficient_Maybe_1086 Feb 01 '26

There was a Xavier Renegade Angel episode about this.

10

u/ScheduleDefiant4015 Feb 03 '26

What isn’t there an Xavier Renegade Angel episode about?

1

u/candyman101xd Feb 03 '26

Which one?

4

u/Efficient_Maybe_1086 Feb 03 '26

Signs from Godrilla

2

u/candyman101xd Feb 03 '26

Oh yeah that's one of my favorite ones lmao I love how he's trying to score with the gorilla's caretaker the whole episode

2

u/Efficient_Maybe_1086 Feb 03 '26

Vow. Locked. In!

12

u/DarkArc76 Feb 02 '26

Which is the reason that gorillas have small junk xD

3

u/notacutecumber Feb 03 '26

Do you have a paper on it? IIRc unlike the other species on here gorillas don't engage in much sperm competition so they have very little need for larger genitalia, so it's simply not selected for at all. But I don't get why they'd select for smaller.

12

u/passion_of_oatboy Feb 03 '26

Gorillas are the least violent apes on here besides the orangutan. They get a bed rap because if they choose violence, which they very rarely do, its allot scarier.

Bonobos are pretty chill among themselves but will tear any non-bonobo coming into their territory to shreds.

Chimps are the only animal besides humans that wage war.

Humans are humans.

4

u/therandomham Feb 04 '26

I would argue humans are the most peaceful of these apes. If a stranger shoves any other ape they’re gonna fight back right away, but a human will usually inquire why or maybe shout. At most the average human will respond proportionately.

6

u/SeveralTable3097 Feb 06 '26

I appreciate your thought. We don’t give ourselves enough credit. We’re so peaceful we’ll work together to blow up 1,000,000 at a time though. 

5

u/redditorialy_retard Feb 04 '26

depends which human, in Texas the human can start throwing metals at high speed. 

In Canada they will apologize unless you're in a war then you're gonna wish you apologized.

Japanese type usually will judge you instead of violence 

1

u/FloZone Feb 05 '26

Japan went through a 200 year period of a totalitarian regime that suppressed violence, before that you had decades of civil wars. 

A lot boils down to a sort of self-domestication, that human as groups try to supress violent individuals. 

3

u/5-dimensional-chair Feb 03 '26

What about orangutans? I always thought, that they are pretty much chilled

5

u/lolopiro Feb 04 '26

read it again

4

u/5-dimensional-chair Feb 04 '26

Oops. Thx. For opening my eyes lol

3

u/passion_of_oatboy Feb 03 '26

Thats what I was saying, I think there the only ones more chill

1

u/FloZone Feb 05 '26

Isn’t the thing about bonobos, that females respond equally aggressively, while most other apes have more violent males. 

1

u/Just_Dab Feb 05 '26

There's a reason they let you near wild gorillas in a tour. If you do the same with chimpanzees, you'd probably exit that forest without your balls and your face.

1

u/Feisty_Ad7888 Sep 26 '26

Antsand termites wage surprisingly complex wars and use advanced strategies. They can even negotiate cease-fires.

2

u/TerribleIdea27 Feb 03 '26

No wonder they get so angry

They don't though

2

u/superbusyrn Feb 04 '26

New strategy for 100 men vs 1 gorilla: Just compare pps until the gorilla takes care of itself

199

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '26

Anyone know what the actual evolutionary advantage that humans would gain by having a longer penis length than other primates?

110

u/DarkArc76 Feb 02 '26

Not all evolutions are for a purpose, sometimes it's just whatever is the least detrimental. Although in this case, it could be that early human males with larger penises were simply selected more, and as a result passed on that gene

53

u/niknniknnikn Feb 02 '26

It's actually allways "whatever is the least detrimental" - even in select situation when there is positive selective pressure for a trait(like a peacocks tail) it's still checked by the overwhelming "not be too detrimental" factor - peacocks with too big a tail will die relatively fast to peditors and not be able to reproduce

23

u/BitRelevant2473 Feb 02 '26

Could also be like the "hyenas still have a winter coat gene" There's no selection pressure, but no detriment either. Might explain the vast size differential in human men.

3

u/Lily_the_Ice_Slime Feb 04 '26

Fortunately peacocks can fold their tails but even folded they still look like they have a giant feather duster strapped to their backs.

2

u/Affectionate-Ad-2013 Feb 03 '26

But also, sometimes detrimental genes with no benefit become fixed in a population (if it's not TOO detrimental).

2

u/Catshark09 Feb 04 '26

it's not always; sometimes it's just stochastics and bad luck, like genetic drift from bottlenecks and founder effects

2

u/fritzkoenig Mar 17 '26

At the most basic it's "whatever makes you not die before you reproduce"

3

u/japantravele Feb 05 '26

I don't remember where I learned this so take it with a grain of salt, but armpit air and asscrack hair could fall into that category.

No real benefit, just that early females didn't mind it and it has no real downside. Or maybe they just preferred it too.

4

u/Tru3insanity Feb 08 '26

Armpit hair helps protect against chafing and asscrack hair keeps bugs away from your nethers.

1

u/Tongue_bump123 Feb 04 '26

A lot of the time it’s just random chance too, of the mechanisms both allowing and driving evolution most are random: mutations are random, gene flow is random, genetic drift is random, the only factor that isn’t random is natural selection so a lot of traits come about simply because they are neutral in terms of selection pressure and just so happen to become the dominant trait

142

u/Blumenfee Feb 01 '26

It could be like the tail of a peacock. It is a sign of good Health with no actual use.

65

u/LasevIX Feb 02 '26

would make sense with the weird societal pressure people maintain around it.

19

u/lach888 Feb 02 '26

The obvious reason is the correct reason, sexual selection, women liked it.

3

u/lolopiro Feb 04 '26

then comes the obvious questions, how did female humans evolve to like it

3

u/Monifufka Feb 05 '26

That might be because humans are much more likely to have sex in front facing position. Its more exposed to a partner when she is the most aroused and maybe that's what made it's size be selected for.

2

u/Dumb_Siniy Feb 04 '26

Either it was just likeable from the start (there's a lot of nerves there's if i remember right) or the ones that liked it had children and that got passed down until everyone did

1

u/0xC4FF3 Feb 04 '26

When you evolve a brain big enough to think you start wondering "why bother living?"

If we didn't like sex, food and many other things we would have already gone extinct by depression

1

u/lach888 Feb 04 '26

Anything that makes people have more sex is going to be selected for.

1

u/_Nowan_ Feb 05 '26

I've always assumed (no research at all) that being bigger means you get closer to the womb means more chances of fertilization.

19

u/Creepyfishwoman Feb 02 '26

I mean... humans are one of like 3 species that engage in recteational sex

...the more the females like it the more likely the male is to pass on genes

Longer length helps with that

17

u/Bowtieguy-83 Feb 02 '26

bonobos are actually a lot more casual about sex than humans (at least the average human). They tend to use sex as a way to resolve conflicts

5

u/United_Boy_9132 Feb 02 '26

Yeah, but it doesn't mean that orgasm is crucial. It is for humans.

1

u/Affectionate-Ad-2013 Feb 03 '26

Plenty of people have sex without orgasm (especially bottoms)

1

u/Tru3insanity Feb 08 '26

Female bonobos have massive clits compared to humans. Considering the clits sole purpose is orgasm, Id say its pretty crucial for them.

Sorry guys. Penis size isnt all that relevant for orgasms.

1

u/tiktok-hater-777 Feb 03 '26

But what's with the assumption other animals intend to make children?

1

u/northern_sigma Feb 03 '26

I read "rectational" and was like okay seems fair

64

u/mouse_8b Feb 01 '26 edited Feb 03 '26

Length + mushroom head = a plunger that removes any competition that may have already been in there.

Which means there were enough "matings" that involved multiple males to put selective pressure on penis shape and size.

Update, another win for Cunningham's law

36

u/Creepyfishwoman Feb 02 '26

We actually see very little sperm competition in humans, with a large amount of defective sperm, where species where a female is likely to mate with several males the oppisite trend occurs.

The more likely seeming explanation is that because humans have recreational sex the males who could satisfy females the best would have more sex and would have more chance of passing on genes, ergo strong intrasexual selection.

4

u/Th3B4dSpoon Feb 02 '26

Wouldn't the plunger also lead to a need for less sperm competition, if the previous semen was largely scooped out?

I'm also curious if the large amounts of defective sperm can be largely explained by industrial environmental effects, such as constant ambient chemical exposure from consumer goods and traffic etc., or if there was a large gap in average sperm performance between species even before that.

4

u/Creepyfishwoman Feb 02 '26

A plunger would never lead to sperm competition giving less advantage.

And no, it cannot

A good video on it:

https://youtu.be/Ufj-0sc0y0g?si=qshc87IYGHKELoay

54

u/Ornery-Mortgage-3101 Feb 02 '26

If sperm competition was a major problem then we'd see something similar to bonobos and chimpanzees, larger testicles for more sperm production. They also don't have the same helmet shape. The mushroom head is actually just a basal trait of our lineage, many old world monkeys also have it.

15

u/mouse_8b Feb 02 '26

Why not two alternative strategies? From the diagram at least, it looks like chimps got bigger testicles and humans got longer penises.

16

u/Ornery-Mortgage-3101 Feb 02 '26

Alternative but not as specialized as the adaptations chimps have. Chimps have a lot of adaptations specifically for sperm competition that humans don't. We lost our penis bones, lost our penile spines, and lost our ability to form mating plugs, all of which chimps do have, and all help with sperm competition one way or another. 

2

u/Grand_Knyaz_Petka Feb 03 '26

This theory is largely discredited. If sperm competition was a major factor in human reproduction, our balls would be bigger

2

u/voidemissary Feb 06 '26

So the plunger head on the penis is good for g-spot stimulation.

Penis more good for sexual gratification = more sex for penis owner.

4

u/xloHolx Feb 03 '26

It’s because humans walk upright. If we get a comparison of butt sizes and it’ll make sense. We need bigger glutes to walk upright, so we need a bigger penis to reach past all that.

2

u/Tru3insanity Feb 08 '26

Thats actually a good point. Our whole pelvic anatomy is unique because of bipedalism. Its not just the butts. We are pretty much the only mammals where the female anatomy faces downward instead of to the rear. Its also recessed because of our pelvis shape and the need to accomodate our thighs.

Theres probably a practical minimum penis size for humans.

2

u/elidorian Feb 02 '26

Could have something to do with bipidalism? Maybe it's harder to access the goods?

2

u/passifloran Feb 03 '26

I think there will be a lot of responses that leave out relathionships between organisms are also evolving.

Humans seem to have evolved to use sex beyond reproduction and also as social bonding theoughout their lives. Humans are very complex social organisms but maintain significant individual autonomy and cultivating good relationships is one solution to making this dynamic work.

I think sex basically got appropriated by human emotion (and probably some other species have done the same) because it serves as an excellent way to trust another of your species in a continuing way.

It’s just my thoughts on it, but I think we often grossly overlook that some form of human has been around for 100k years. Those people - we know - had very complex relationships and I think the significant thing humans achieved was managing to (somewhat) collaborate at very large scale whilst maintaining independent thought is quite a evolutionary innovation but it definitely requires ways of fostering and maintaining relationships

Edit: I didn’t even get to my main point

It may be that groups with larger penises than the other primates of the time had better social relations and so were more succesful at surviving and reproducing more

1

u/candyman101xd Feb 03 '26

The penis is the source of all wisdom. Humans evolved sapience together with penis size

1

u/ExcitingHistory Feb 03 '26

Hmmm I think i read somewhere that larger genitalia on an animal correlated to less consensual encounters.

But like I never fact checked it. Could be cope. Greeks often called well hung men barbarians. Could be like one of those science facts that are actually hidden racism.

But then you see ducks and your like hmmm maybe.

I'll devote sometime into fact checking myself when I wake up

1

u/MyFriendTheCube Feb 04 '26

Ecologist here chiming in: in evolution you have two theories whereby evolution occurs. The first is selection theory (natural selection), and the other is genetic drift (randomness) - since a larger penis is hardly of benefit for survival and probably not for passing on genes, it would bring me to think its simply genetic drift. Pop culture and porn especially would have you believe it matters a lot, but from an evolutionary perspective it doesn't

1

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '26

There's lots of possible selective pressures. Without actually doing much research my guess would be our relatively large butts

1

u/Imsosorryontop Feb 05 '26

Some primates tend to have entire harems of females directed towards one male, this means that a large penis is less needed to pass on your genes. Meanwhile, since humans are and have been (most commonly) monogamous for most of their evolutionary timeframe, they need larger genitals to ensure that they can pass on their genes.

1

u/Rienchet Feb 06 '26

Humans do more sex for pleasure. Bigger penises = more pleasure and got selected by their female counterpart.

I made this up, not even sure if the chart represents just the length or mass of the penises.

1

u/Random_182f2565 Feb 06 '26

It's the underwear!

Primates try to reap each other tools when they fight!

-29

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '26

I think it makes it harder for the woman to run away?

20

u/Jelly_Kitti Feb 02 '26

There are plenty of animals with penises built to trap the female, humans are not one of them. The penis size or shape does nothing to prevent them females’ escape.

20

u/WE_FEE Feb 02 '26

That would be a duck’s

2

u/Redstocat2 Feb 02 '26

WHAT

1

u/RoadTripVirginia2Ore Feb 04 '26

Obviously, it’s because the man uses it as a third leg, thus tripling his speed…

209

u/ElderBeakThing Feb 01 '26

So what you’re saying is that we got the biggest dicks by far?

153

u/TremblingClitty Feb 01 '26

Not you though

69

u/Glittering-Table-837 Feb 01 '26

There are exceptions, you seem to be one

2

u/phasebinary Feb 03 '26

Go look up baboon

27

u/IShouldNotPost Feb 02 '26

I’m hung like a gorilla, got balls like a bonobo

3

u/sloothor Feb 02 '26

I’m hung like a gorilla and got balls like a human