{"id":46518,"date":"2024-06-21T00:01:11","date_gmt":"2024-06-21T07:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/?post_type=custom_visuals&p=46518"},"modified":"2024-06-20T13:11:35","modified_gmt":"2024-06-20T20:11:35","slug":"sneaky-little-swimmers","status":"publish","type":"custom_visuals","link":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/videos-visuals\/sneaky-little-swimmers\/","title":{"rendered":"Sneaky Little Swimmers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Competition is stiff in the ocean, particularly for males seeking to spread their seed. That\u2019s why animals have evolved all sorts of different mating strategies, including that of the so-called sneaker male, which is often smaller than territorial males and may have the coloration of a female. In this system\u2014commonly seen among fish\u2014a territorial male guards a nest so its mate can lay eggs, but when he\u2019s not paying attention, a sneaker male will dash in and fertilize the spawn.<\/p>\n

Scientists generally assumed that each type of male, the smaller sneaker and the larger territorial one, ejaculates the same way: by quivering and squeezing milt through a small fleshy tube onto a female\u2019s eggs. But because they have different mating strategies, a researcher from Japan wondered if each had a different way of spurting his sperm. For white-banded triplefin<\/a>, a species of small marine fish in the triplefin blenny family, at least, the answer seems to be yes.<\/p>\n

Kazutaka Ota, a marine biologist at Osaka Metropolitan University in Japan, observed wild white-banded triplefin off the coast of Japan and found that the two male morphs have unique semen-shooting shimmies<\/a>.<\/p>\n