Holy hanging nut sack, or in this case, not. Male elephants don’t have a ball bag. Have a look. You won’t find one. It’s as it the elephant is either not in need of balls, or has already been castrated. But they do have balls, they’re just not in the usual place. This is a seriously vastly different design to just about every other male mammal in this world. So why is it that elephants don’t have a ball bag when nearly every other male mammal does?
If you are especially naive and don’t know what a ball bag is, here we go. A ball bag is the piece of skin that holds the balls, nuts of the male. It’s normally located near the wiener and contracts or extends depending on the ambient temperature around it. The hotter it is the lower, or further away from the body the nuts are. The colder it is, the closer they are to the body. The reason that it does this is because the balls need to be kept just a little cooler than the rest of the body for the sperm to survive. Too cold, they die. Too hot, they die. Odd setup isn’t it? I mean, here is basically the most important piece of anatomy of a male for reproductive purposes, and it is sitting there all exposed because the sperm needs to be kept cooler, which raises another question. Why did evolution need sperm to be kept just that little bit cooler to survive. It’s as if we were designed not to breed. So what about elephants?
Even though elephants don’t have a ball bag, they do have balls. The balls are actually located inside the male, in about the same location that the ovaries would be found in the female. Furthermore, there is no indication that elephants have ever had a ball bag. Even whales show signs of having had an external ball bag at some stage in the evolutionary process.
Female elephants also have a very different reproductive system compared to mot other mammals. Their genitalia isn’t located at the rear of the animal near like the rest are. It can be found down low actually physically between the legs, where the udders and nipples are normally found. It’s believed that this is to prevent a large fall during birth. The udders can be found in pretty much the same location that they are on a human female. Up front between the front legs.
When you think about it, elephants really are amazing creatures.
