Gregory's ServerFirst things first, mastodons were a giant animal related to present-day elephants and woolly mammoths. The name literally translates as "breast tooth" because anatomist Georges Cuvier thought its molars looked like they had nipples.
Image credit: Mary Gagnon
|
Top-level
20 comments
But, we can make an educated guess by looking at their surviving cousins, the African and Asian elephants, who have absolutely fascinating vaginas. Since they share a common ancestor (who was likely marine) with mastodons, the same principles likely apply. The first thing you need to know about the elephant gynaecological anatomy is that it is up to three metres long from the entrance to the ovaries. Elephants don't have an external vaginal entrance. The entrance to the vagina begins about a metre into the elephant. Between the vaginal entrance and the outside world is a part known as the vestibule or the urogenital canal. In most mammals, the vulva is outside, and the vagina is inside. As well as having a vagina that is very far inside, some of the features of the elephant's vulva are inside the vestibule. Elephants have a hymen at the opening of the vagina, which, as you'll recall, is about a metre into the elephant. The hymen is so far inside that it doesn't interact with the penis during mating; it's only injured when the elephant gives birth. There's a lot of diversity in how elephant hymens look. Also, some elephant vaginas have a blind alley or two next to the vaginal opening. Image credit: Balke et all (1988). Journal of Reproductive Fertility, 84, 485-492 If you're still struggling to visualise how this rather unusual anatomy fits inside the elephant, here's a diagram superimposed on an African elephant. Image credit: Brown et al (2004). Zoo Biology, 23, 45-63 Note how the vestibule begins between the elephant's rear legs, goes up, then makes a sharp curve into the vagina, which is much smaller than the vestibule. The anatomy of the elephant means that it's incredibly difficult to artificially inseminate them, so even if we were able to clone a mastodon it would be very hard to get it into an elephant uterus to act as surrogate. The complex internal anatomy also makes it very difficult for female elephants to be sexually assaulted. This is aided by one more feature: elephant clits. The elephant clitoris is up to 50 centimetres long. The crura (which are also internal in humans) are about half the length of the vestibule. The glans (external in humans) and body (internal in humans) both protrude out of the vestibule, looking like a penis. Elephant clitorises are retractable, too. Sometimes the elephant might put it away. It's likely that these principles would apply to mastodons as well as elephants: a very long vestibule, an internal hymen and vaginal opening, a huge retractable clitoris. Where they might differ would be in size: mastodons were a bit shorter and stockier than elephants. If anyone ever successfully finds a preserved mastodon vagina, please don't hesitate to reach out, we'd LOVE to see it. @vagina_museum I bet if you call over to the #Natural #History #Museum #London you may get a lead on whether one exists. Occasionally they unearth well preserved #specimens. @vagina_museum |
Although mastodons lived as little as 12,000 years ago, there are very few samples of their soft tissue, and absolutely none of their reproductive system. This means, ultimately, we don't know exactly what mastodon vaginas were like.