My neighbors were having another loud argument. This time she was chanting “vagina” in his face, and he was chanting “penis” at her.
I didn’t understand their logic, but the dispute reminded me of a commonly washed-up animal called the vagina salp (Thetyes vagina). People who are perhaps vagina-squeamish call it the giant salp or the twin-sail salp. Anyway, in the old days, the word “vagina” originally meant “sheath” or “scabbard,” which is consistent with the animal’s shape.
Salps are classified in the order Salpida within the phylum Chordata, which is the same phylum that contains all vertebrate animals, including humans. Even though it doesn’t have vertebrae, it has a dorsal nerve cord, which we also have during our embryonic development. So even though it looks and feels like leathery gelatin, it is more closely related to you than to a jellyfish (even if you’re a spineless politician).
Like other salps, the vagina salp’s life history includes chains of sexually reproducing individuals. At this stage, each linked individual may grow to 8 inches long, and the chain may be more than 50 feet long. They are sequential hermaphrodites, which means they change sexes. They begin as chains of egg-carrying females, which are fertilized by the older male chains, before becoming male themselves.
The offspring of these linked salps grow to become the larger free-swimming asexual individuals, which are the largest known salps. They may grow to more than a foot long, though the biggest I’ve found was maybe 10 inches. These individuals produce the next generation of linked sexual individuals by budding off chains of female clones.
This complex reproductive cycle allows the salps to increase their populations rapidly when food is abundant. At these times, the salps may bloom into vast numbers of both sexual chains and asexual individuals. There may be such a high density that fisherfolks’ nets become fouled. The salps may deplete the food resources rapidly this way and then die off.
But when they die, they sink and transport tons of carbon that become sequestered in the deep ocean. And their huge quantities of sinking poop do the same. They are so efficient at transporting atmospheric carbon to the deep sea that scientists think if salps were to disappear, we’d be in a hell of a lot worse shape than we already are. (Luckily, they aren’t currently at risk of disappearing.)
An individual vagina salp on the beach will be flattened. But in the water, it is a barrel-like tube encircled by muscular bands that contract in sequence to pump water through the body. This flow of water facilitates filter feeding and creates efficient jet propulsion. An internal mucous net catches small planktonic prey such as diatoms, dinoflagellates, detritus, other single-celled organisms and small multi-cellular animals. In turn, lots of things eat vagina salps, which are more nutritious than they look. These include jellyfish, birds, sea turtles and fish. Even larval spiney lobsters appear to target them.
A complete specimen has two dark, flap-like greenish or bluish tentacles at the rear end — the “twin sails” of the alternate common name. Its internal organs are visible, and are often red and yellow. If you are lucky, you might see a developing chain of salps inside.
But none of this salp information helped me understand the logic of the arguing couple. So I tried their chanting myself. I found that if you chant “vagina” with vigor, it sets up a graceful ¾ waltz rhythm. While chanting “penis” produces a clunky 2/4 oom-pah polka rhythm.
So, vagina for the win! (Note: Washed Up’s cybersecurity software quarantined 12 puns during the writing of this story.)
Biologist Mike Kelly (he/him) is also the author of the book Tigerfish: Traditional and Sport Fishing on the Niger River, Mali, West Africa. It’s available at Amazon or everywhere e-books are sold.
This article appears in ‘Doing its Part’.