meehawl

all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned

Mammals Rule

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The fundamental organization of the reproductive part of the vertebrate urogenital tract is straightforward: it’s a tube with a funnel at one end that captures eggs released by the ovary, and conducts them to an external orifice. Along the way, cells lining the tube secrete useful products like albumin and yolk, and deposit a shell, and may act to temporarily store the egg before its final release. Marsupial and placental mammals have dispensed with most of those functions, and expanded on others. One part of the oviduct has acquired a richly vascularized epithelium and specializations for investing and nurturing a resident embryo, becoming a uterus. That’s an amazing and innovative function in itself, but in addition, it has formed a new, separate channel, the vagina. The vagina is an entirely new structure, which has no homolog in amphibians or reptiles.

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