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Reciprocity constitutes the prevalent mating mechanism among simultaneous hermaphrodites. Yet, when copulations in the female role confer fitness costs through male manipulation, it becomes advantageous sometimes to mate unilaterally in the male role only. In the sea slug Siphopteron quadrispinosum, acting males stab their partner with a bipartite penis, which not only hypodermically injects prostate fluids, but also apparently mechanically enforces unilateral male matings. Despite a pronounced male mating drive in both partners, unilaterality ensued when one slug stabbed more rapidly than its partner. The acting male may thus avoid the costs inflicted by traumatic injections and penial spines. While future studies need to elucidate the net fitness consequences of stabbing, our behavioural evidence is in line with the hypothesis that mating in S. quadrispinosum represents conflicting rather than complementary mating interests between mates.

Precopulatory stabbing, hypodermic injections and unilateral copulations in a hermaphroditic sea slug