Mammalian sexual differentiation lessons from the spotted.pdfVIP

Review TRENDS in Endocrinology and Metabolism Vol.17 No.9 Mammalian sexual differentiation: lessons from the spotted hyena 1 2 3 Stephen E. Glickman , Gerald R. Cunha , Christine M. Drea , Alan J. Conley4 and Ned J. Place5 1 Departments of Psychology and Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA 2 Departments of Anatomy and Urology, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA 3 Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA 4 Department of Population Health and Reproduction, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA 5 Department of Population Medicine Diagnostic Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA Female spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) are the only because only female spotted hyenas display the suite of female mammals that lack an external vaginal opening. ‘masculine’ genital characteristics described below. Mating and birth take place through a urogenital canal that exits at the tip of a hypertrophied clitoris. This Urogenital anatomy of the female spotted hyena ‘masculine’ phenotype spurred a search for an alternate In terms of their external genitalia, spotted hyenas are the source of fetal androgens. Although androstenedione most highly ‘masculinized’ extant female mammals. As from the maternal ovary is readily metabolized to tes- can be seen in Figure 1, female spotted hyenas display a tosterone by the hyena placenta, formation of the penile fused scrotum, rather than the labia majora of a typical clitoris and scrotum appear to be largely androgen female mammal. The hypertrophied clitoris is similar in independent.