دورية أكاديمية

Intra-horn insemination in the alpaca Vicugna pacos: Copulatory wounding and deep sperm deposition

التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
العنوان: Intra-horn insemination in the alpaca Vicugna pacos: Copulatory wounding and deep sperm deposition
المؤلفون: Brennan, Patricia L. R., Purdy, Stephen, Bacon, Sarah J.
المساهمون: Bhattacharjee, Jayonta, Mount Holyoke College, NSF CAREER
المصدر: PLOS ONE ; volume 19, issue 4, page e0295882 ; ISSN 1932-6203
بيانات النشر: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
سنة النشر: 2024
المجموعة: PLOS Publications (via CrossRef)
الوصف: Alpacas ( Vicugna pacos ) are reported to be the rare mammal in which the penis enters the uterus in mating. To date, however, only circumstantial evidence supports this assertion. Using female alpacas culled for meat, we determined that the alpaca penis penetrates to the very tips of the uterine horns, abrading the tract and breaking fine blood vessels. All female alpacas sacrificed one hour or 24 hours after mating showed conspicuous bleeding in the epithelium of some region of their reproductive tract, including the hymen, cervix and the tips of each uterine horn, but typically not in the vagina. Unmated females showed no evidence of conspicuous bleeding. Histological examination of mated females revealed widespread abrasion of the cervical and endometrial epithelium, injuries absent in unmated females. Within one hour of mating, sperm were already present in the oviduct. The male alpaca’s cartilaginous penis tip with a hardened urethral process is likely responsible for the copulatory abrasion. The entire female reproductive tract interacts with the penis, functioning like a vagina. Alpacas are induced ovulators, and wounding may hasten delivery of the seminal ovulation-inducing factor beta-NGF into the female’s blood stream. There is no evidence of sexual conflict in copulation in alpaca, and thus wounding may also be one of a variety of mechanisms devised by mammals to induce a beneficial, short-term inflammatory response that stimulates blastocyst implantation, the uterine remodeling associated with placental development, and thus the success of early pregnancy.
نوع الوثيقة: article in journal/newspaper
اللغة: English
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0295882
الإتاحة: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295882Test
حقوق: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0Test/
رقم الانضمام: edsbas.1DDA9EF0
قاعدة البيانات: BASE