![]() ![]() Say what you will about animal penises but they’re a perfect example of how fascinating, diverse, and maybe a bit weird, nature truly is. The more complex penises belong to primates like bushbabies and lemurs, who mate with many partners in their lifetime. Primates with simpler penises tend to be monogamous (only have one partner) or polygynous (mate with only a few partners). We are the only primate without a bone in the penis and have a relatively more simple structure. The size and shape of penises in primates vary too and compared to other animals, the human penis is actually rather dull. Compared to a female, a silverback gorilla has a larger head, and body and can weigh up to 270. A silverback is much larger than a female. A male gorilla that is too old to be a juvenile but too young to be a silverback is referred to as a blackback. The heaviest gorilla ever recorded was a silverback that was shot dead in Ambam, Cameroon and weighed 267 kg (about 589 pounds). Silverback gorillas are distinguished by a grayish-white hairline around the back and shoulders. In fact, humans have a proportionately large penis size compared to their body size – but length is not everything (am I right?). Wild male gorillas can weigh between 136 to 195 kg (300 to 430 pounds), while female gorillas can weigh about half as much as adult males at 68 to 113 kg (150 to 250 pounds). The largest gorilla will only have a penis that is two and half inches long when erect. However, the penis size of many primates is much compared to the testes. To put that into perspective, a human’s testis is only 50 grams, so chimps have a testis that is 3 times that! This is a third of the size of its brain. ![]() To accommodate this increased level of sperm production, the chimpanzee’s testis is relatively large, at a weight of 150 to 170 grams. The more sperm produced, the more likely it is that the female’s offspring will have that chimp’s DNA (which is the main goal in all primates, and indeed many animals). This results in sperm competition whereby each of the males need to produce lots of sperm to outcompete the other males. What’s more, each of these females are only fertile about once or twice every four years! So, a large penis is not exactly necessary.Ĭhimpanzees are pretty promiscuous creatures with several males mating with one female whilst she is fertile. Silverback males own a group of three-four females, known as a harem, who are constantly either pregnant or breastfeeding. Silverback male gorillas, by contrast, monopolise a harem of females and are. Whilst this may seem surprising, gorillas don’t need massive genitals given the sexual dynamics of this species. Penis size is sexually selected only in ape species like chimps and humans where the female exercises mate choice. Did you know that male silverback gorillas weigh around 250 kilograms, but their penis and testes are only 10 grams? That’s equivalent to a vending machine having a testis the weight of 10 paperclips. ![]()
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