Dear colleagues, We are pleased to announce the following paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Genital interactions during simulated copulation among marine mammals We will also be presenting the data at the upcoming Society for Marine Mammalogy conference on Wednesday Oct 25th at 17:00 (Cetacean and pinniped Kama Sutra: Copulatory fit amongst marine mammals) Authors: Dara Orbach, Diane Kelly, Mauricio Solano, and Patricia Brennan Abstract: Genitalia are morphologically variable across many taxa and in physical contact during intromission, but little is known about how variation in form correlates with function during copulation. Marine mammals offer important insights into the evolutionary forces that act on genital morphology because they have diverse genitalia and are adapted to aquatic living and mating. Cetaceans have a fibroelastic penis and muscular vaginal folds, while pinnipeds have a baculum and lack vaginal folds. We examined copulatory fit in naturally deceased marine mammals to identify anatomical landmarks in contact during copulation and the potential depth of penile penetration into the vagina. Excised penises were artificially inflated to erection with pressurized saline and compared with silicone vaginal endocasts and within excised vaginas in simulated copulation using high-resolution, diffusible iodine-based, contrast-enhanced computed tomography. We found evidence suggestive of both congruent and antagonistic genital coevolution, depending on the species. We suggest that sexual selection influences morphological shape. This study improves our understanding of howmechanical interactions during copulation influence the shape of genitalia and affect fertility, and has broad applications to other taxa and species conservation. Citation: Orbach DN, Kelly DA, Solano M, Brennan PLR. 2017 Genital interactions during simulated copulation among marine mammals. Proc. R. Soc. B 284: 20171265. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.1265 Feel free to e-mail me at dnorbach@gmail.com for a PDF of the article. Cheers, Dara Orbach, PhD Izaak Walton Killam Postdoctoral Fellow Whitehead Lab Department of Biology Dalhousie University Research Associate Brennan Lab Department of Biological Sciences Mount Holyoke College