The Blowjob Babies
You may have noticed by now that this blog strives to glorify the more unusual animals that share planet Earth, quite often focusing on their sex lives. This time we are taking it up a level.
Allow me to introduce the Cichlid (pronounced sick-lid) fish of Lake Malawi in Africa. Whilst these cheery fish may look fairly pleasant, come the mating season they reveal a much kinkier nature. Most Cichlids are mouth brooders, meaning the parent cares for the eggs and/or fry (baby fish) in their mouth. However, around four families of Cichlid are known to also exhibit ovophilic behaviour. This means that once the female lays her eggs, she takes them up into her mouth and looks for a mate. When she has found the lucky guy, she opens her mouth and allows him to ejaculate into her mouth. Once inside the seminal fluid mixes with the eggs and fertilises their offspring.
Keeping your babies in your mouth may seem dangerous, but it is actually a perfect hiding place from predators. So in fact Cichlids actually make quite good parents.
The whole oral sex venture is quite unusual (even for fish), and scientists in Switzerland believe they have discovered an “oral sex gene” … imaginatively named csf1ra. This gene is linked to the presence of egg spots on the male’s anal fin, which mimic a stray egg. The female tries to swallow the egg spot, stimulating the male to ejaculate his sperm into her mouth. Nice.
So you thought oral sex was safe? Well now you know about the blowjob babies =)
