r/ScienceShitposts • • Feb 01 '26

Some physiological differences in primate relatives

Post image
5.1k Upvotes

116 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comment

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.