Traumatic Insemination and Copulatory Wounding

Abstract

Copulatory wounding occurs in many animals, resulting in a wide range of mating damage. Such wounding may be either accidental or adaptive. At the far end of the spectrum lies traumatic insemination, a mating system in which males of a species (or functional males in simultaneous hermaphrodites) puncture their partner’s body wall during mating, injecting sperm through the wound. Despite its seemingly counteradaptive nature, such mating has evolved multiple times in terrestrial and marine invertebrates. This paper reviews our current knowledge on the evolution of this bizarre form of mating. Keywords Copulatory woundingGenitaliaHaemoceolic inseminationMating systemSexual conflictSexual selectionSexual selectionTraumatic insemination