Can You Guess What Animal Has The Biggest Testicles?

Two days ago I blogged about the animal that holds the record for producing the world's largest sperm. If you for whatever reason don't want to open that link, the answer is the Drosophila bifurca fly, which produces sperm cells that are almost 5 cm (yes, cm like centimeters) long! Their sperm is actually double their body length!

Continuing in the spirit of that post, today I am gonna tell you about the animal that has the world's biggest testicles. Unlike with my sperm post, if this time your guess was the blue whale (which is the largest animal to have ever existed) you won't be that much wrong. But still, you will  be wrong!

If we are talking from a purely mass perspective, then the winner is by far the right whale. Although right whales on average weigh about half compared to blue whales, the testicles of the right whale are actually ten times larger, with each one having a weight of up  to 525 kg! Unfortunately, I couldn't find a real photo showing their balls, so here's a cartoon instead:

(credit)

But the right whale is not the...right answer if the question is "what animal has the biggest testicles proportionally to its body"! In that case, after doing a bit of online research I believe the gold medal goes to the Bushcricket (Platycleis affinis).

Dr Karim Vahed holding a specimen of a male Tuberous bushcricket together with its testicles. (credit)

Back in 2010, researchers from the University of Derby, discovered that the Bushcricket produces testes that make up to 14% of its body mass! The researchers couldn't really believe their findings:

"We couldn't believe the size of these organs, they seemed to fill the entire abdomen." said  lead researcher Dr Karim Vahed

But why does this insect have such big balls? Well, the most obvious answer to that question is to ejaculate more sperm during sex, increasing their chances of impregnating a female! Too bad it's not that because the researchers found that the insect "did not produce more sperm: in fact they produced less voluminous ejaculates. "

Apparently, the reason behind the huge testicles is that it allows males to mate repeatedly without exhausting their sperm reserves:

"Traditionally it has been pretty safe to assume that when females are promiscuous, males use monstrously-sized testicles to deliver huge numbers of sperm to swamp the competition -- even in primates. Our study shows that we have to rethink this assumption. It looks as though the testes may be that big simply to allow males to mate repeatedly without their sperm reserves being exhausted." said  Dr James Gilbert  who helped in the study.

So, enough ball-talk for the day! Can you guess what's tomorrow's post is gonna be about? Leave your guesses down in the comments ;)

More Strange Animal Stuff

If you enjoyed reading  this post I am sure you will love some of my previous work:

• Meet The World's Strangest Ants 
• The Squid With The Human-Like Teeth! (Promachoteuthis sulcus!)
• 4 Very Strange Animals I First Heard Of This Week
• Halloween Special: A Real-Life Monster Compilation
• Alien-Like Moth With Tentacles Terrifies The Internet - But Is This Creature Real?
• This Hummingbird Is Just So Weird! Can You Guess Why?
• This Deep Sea Creature Looks Like An Alien Spaceship 
• World's Largest Millipede VS Smallest Millipede