for National Geographic News For African bat bugs, the battle of
the sexes is quite literally a violent struggle—and now it
appears that the bugs are using gender-bending tactics to defend
themselves. Bat bugs are small, reddish-brown parasites related
to bed bugs that suck the blood of bats and sometimes bite
humans. Researchers have long known that male bat bugs ignore
females' conventional parts and instead use their sharp penises
to stab the females' abdomens, injecting sperm directly into the
bloodstream. So the females evolved a defense: structures called
paragenitals that guide a male's needle-like member into a
spongy reservoir of immune cells. But the females aren't the
only ones in need of protection. Observers documented males
performing the same injurious sexual acts on other males. Now
evolutionary biologist Klaus Reinhardt of the University of
Sheffield in England has discovered that male bat bugs have
developed their own versions of female paragenitals to avoid the
assaults. And some female bat