It may seem like an evolutionary paradox for animals to engage in masturbation instead of copulating with a partner, but a new study published in the June 7 Proceedings of the Royal Society B suggests that the behavior might help male primates be ready to mate when the opportunity arises and stay free of disease. The study, which is the first to use a cross-species approach to explore the function of masturbation, found that the evolutionary history of masturbation in primates extends back at least 40 million years. To determine when masturbation first evolved in primates, evolutionary biologist Matilda Brindle of University College London and colleagues analyzed scientific literature to identify which primates masturbate and which do not, whether in the wild or in captivity. Lateefah Roth, a biologist at the Institute of Forensic Psychiatry and Sex Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany, calls the study “a great starting point.”
2023-06-06 18:01:00
Original from www.sciencenews.org