Female genitalia has always been a taboo subject no matter the species, even with snakes.

For the first time, scientists have found that female snakes have clitorises, in a detailed study of the reptile’s sex organs.

Previous research had mistaken snakes’ clitorises for scent glands or underdeveloped versions of penises.

The study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that snakes have not one but two individual clitorises called hemiclitores, separated by tissue and hidden by skin on the underside of the tail.

‘Female genitalia are conspicuously overlooked in comparison to their male counterparts, limiting our understanding of sexual reproduction across vertebrate lineages,’ wrote the study’s authors.

Male snakes and lizards are known to have hemipenes — a pair of penises which are inside out of the body during reproduction. In many species, hemipenes are covered in spines or hooks.

The study’s lead author and a PhD student at the University of Adelaide, Megan Folwell, said ‘a massive taboo around female genitalia’ was a potential factor in why snake clitorises had not been described earlier.

‘I think it’s a combination of not knowing what to look for and not wanting to,’ she said. ‘Trying to find it is not always the easiest thing – some are extremely tiny,’

She first dissected the clitorises in a death adder, in which the organ forms a triangle shape ‘like a heart’.

The study suggests that the sex organs ‘have functional significance in mating’ in snakes.

The team theorised the hemiclitores ‘could provide some sort of stimulation signalling for vaginal relaxation and lubrication, which would aid the female in copulation potentially prevent damage from those big hemipene hooks and spines during mating’.

‘This is important because snake mating is often thought to involve coercion of the female — not seduction,’ Kate Sanders, a biologist at the University of Adelaide and co-author on the paper, said in a press release.

The sizes of the hemiclitores ranged from less than a millimetre to seven millimetres and comprised of erectile tissue that likely swell with blood, as well as nerve bundles which ‘may be indicative of tactile sensitivity, similar to the mammalian clitoris’.

‘Now that we know that this is here, we know what it looks like, we know there’s erectile tissue with nerves – we can’t help but think: why wouldn’t this be for pleasure?’ said Dr Jenna Crowe-Riddell, the study’s co-author and postdoctoral researcher in neuroecology at La Trobe University.

‘I think it’s worth opening up those questions for snakes.’

Earlier this year, a US study said that the human clitoris has between 9,850-1,100 nerve fibres — about 20% more than the previously widely cited number of 8,000, which reportedly came from research carried out on cows.

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