More or less… Several species of opossums have a bifurcated bilau, which gives the false impression that they have two penises. “This peculiarity is shared by around 70 species of American marsupials”, says biologist José Carlos Nogueira, a specialist in marsupial reproduction at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). It is good to be clear, however, that not all marsupials have a penis like this. The worst: with this oddity of bifurcated bilau, it ends up also being left to the females, who have a bizarre reproductive system. Another curiosity about marsupials, a group of mammals to which koalas and kangaroos still belong, is that the young are born prematurely and complete their development in an external bag in the belly of the females, called a marsupium. Depending on the species, the time spent in the bag can last from a few weeks to over a year.
1. The penis of some species of marsupials, such as opossums and opossums, is forked at the tip
2. The females of these species, in turn, also have two vaginas. At the time of mating, each part of the penis penetrates a vagina, depositing the semen
3. The reproductive system of these females also has two uteruses, where the pups are gestated simultaneously
4. To complete the oddity, when they are about to be born, the young are expelled from the mother’s body through a third orifice, known as the false vagina.
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