Male Bats Caught Performing Oral Sex on Females

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Bat oral sex
A male bat performs oral sex on a female bat after mating in this video still. (Image credit: Maruthupandian J, Marimuthu G (2013) Cunnilingus Apparently Increases Duration of Copulation in the Indian Flying Fox, Pteropus giganteus. PLoS ONE 8(3): e59743. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0059743)

Male bats perform oral sex on females, apparently to make sex last longer, researchers say.

These findings, the first discovery of male-to-female oral sex in bats, match prior studies revealing that female bats perform fellatio, or oral sex, on male bats.

Over the course of more than 13 months, using binoculars and a video camera, researchers witnessed 57 cases of sex ― oral and intercourse ― usually in the morning.

"Apart from humans, bats also exhibit oral sex as a courtship behavior," said Ganapathy Marimuthu, a bat researcher at Madurai Kamaraj University in India.

Initially, males groomed their penises to go erect before approaching females. When they gently touched females with their wings, females typically moved away, and males followed. [See Video of Bats Having Oral Sex]

When the females stopped moving, the males started licking the females’ vaginas ― the act known as cunnilingus. This foreplay may help arouse and lubricate females, the researchers said.

Each case of cunnilingus typically lasted about 50 seconds. The males then mounted the females for 10 to 20 seconds, and then went back to cunnilingus for 94 to 188 seconds.

The researchers found that the longer the stints of cunnilingus before mating, the more copulation was prolonged.

"It is possible that prolonged copulation enables the mobility of sperm," Marimuthu told LiveScience. "Such mobility of sperm increases the chances of conception."

The scientists also noted that males might perform cunnilingus on females in order to clean off competitors’ sperm. Doing so could help ensure their sperm, and not their rivals', impregnates the females. 

"In this context, cunnilingus would be maladaptive after mating, as there is a risk of removing the male’s own sperm," the researchers wrote. "Observation at close range is needed to find out whether the male’s tongue enters the vagina or not."

The bat species found to perform male-to-female and female-to-male oral sex were fruit bats. Oral sex may occur in other species of fruit bats as well, Marimuthu suggested.

Marimuthu and Jayabalan Maruthupandian, also of Madurai Kamaraj University, detailed their findings online March 28 the journal PLOS ONE.

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Charles Q. Choi
Charles Q. Choi
Live Science Contributor
Charles Q. Choi is a contributing writer for Live Science and Space.com. He covers all things human origins and astronomy as well as physics, animals and general science topics. Charles has a Master of Arts degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia, School of Journalism and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Florida. Charles has visited every continent on Earth, drinking rancid yak butter tea in Lhasa, snorkeling with sea lions in the Galapagos and even climbing an iceberg in Antarctica.