You Can Thank These Fish For Inventing Sex

Sex. We like it, we love it, we want some more of it. But where did it come from? Well, according to an international team of scientists and researchers, sex originated some 325 million years ago with a long-extinct species of fish in what is now Scotland. 

According to BBC News (link below), the Microbrachius dicki were the first animals to stop reproducing via spawning, and insert a p into a v.

Lead author Prof John Long, from Flinders University in Australia, said: "We have defined the very point in evolution where the origin of internal fertilisation in all animals began.

Prof Long added that the discovery was made as he was looking through a box of ancient fish fossils.

He noticed that one of the M. dicki specimens had an odd L-shaped appendage. Further investigation revealed that this was the male fish's genitals.

"The male has large bony claspers. These are the grooves that they use to transfer sperm into the female," explained Prof Long.

The female fish, on the other hand, had a small bony structure at their rear that locked the male organ into place.

Constrained by their anatomy, the fish probably had to mate side by side.

"They couldn't have done it in a 'missionary position'," said Prof Long. "The very first act of copulation was done sideways, square-dance style."

The University created that animation up there, and as you can see, you can also thank these fish for inventing the "hit it and quit it" technique as well, apparently. 

Via BBC News