Scientists have made a groundbreaking discovery that has shed new light on the reproductive practices of bats. For the first time, sex without penetration has been documented in a mammal – specifically in the serotine bat, as revealed in a study published in Current Biology.

The penises of bats are about seven times longer than the vaginas of their partners and have a head-heart shaped seven times wider than the vaginal opening, making penetration impossible. However, instead of functioning as a penetration organ, male bats use their oversized penises to move the female’s tail sheath away and maintain contact mating.

Nicolas Fasel, from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and lead author of the study stated, “We think that perhaps it is like in the dog, in which the penis becomes engorged so that it becomes stuck, or perhaps they simply could not insert it, but that type of copulation had not been described in mammals until now.”

The researchers observed genitals during copulation using images from cameras placed behind a grate that they could climb onto. They analyzed a total of 97 pairings from the Dutch church and Ukrainian center. They also noticed that after copulation