Oral sex is widely used in human foreplay, but rarely documented in other animals. Fellatio has been recorded in bonobos Pan paniscus, but even then functions largely as play behaviour among juvenile males. The short-nosed fruit bat Cynopterus sphinx exhibits resource defence polygyny and one sexually active male often roosts with groups of females in tents made from leaves. Female bats often lick their mate's penis during dorsoventral copulation. The female lowers her head to lick the shaft or the base of the male's penis but does not lick the glans penis which has already penetrated the vagina. Males never withdrew their penis when it was licked by the mating partner. A positive relationship exists between the length of time that the female licked the male's penis during copulation and the duration of copulation. Furthermore, mating pairs spent significantly more time in copulation if the female licked her mate's penis than if fellatio was absent. Males also show postcopulatory genital grooming after intromission. At present, we do not know why genital licking occurs, and we present four non-mutually exclusive hypotheses that may explain the function of fellatio in C. sphinx.

Spathoglottis is one of the most popular terrestrial orchids because it is attractive, easy to cultivate and continuously blooms throughout the year. It is a native orchid of Malaysia and listed as an endangered species. Therefore, this species needs to be conserved for commercial and environmental purposes. DNA barcoding is a technique for species identification, which uses a short DNA sequence from a standard and agreed-upon position in the genome. This technique plays an important role in biodiversity conservation for animals but is not yet well established in plants. Chloroplast DNA was chosen for this study aimed at building a DNA barcoding of Spathoglottis species. Seven species of Spathoglottis were used to carry out this study. They were Spathoglottis plicata, Spathoglottis gracilis, Spathoglottis aurea, Spathoglottis plicata alba, Spathoglottis unguiculata, Spathoglottis kimbaliana and a Spathoglottis hybrid. Eight regions (i.e., accD, matK, ndhJ, rpoB, rpoC1, ycf5, rbcL-a and trnH-psbA) in the chloroplast genome and two regions (i.e., ITS1 and ITS2) in the nuclear genome were selected and screened in order to define a universal barcoding region across all the seven selected species. The study found that the four chloroplast regions (i.e., matK, rbcL-a, rpoB and rpoC1) were successfully amplified from all the tested species. The DNA sequencing from each chloroplast region was compared among the species and analyzed to differentiate the intra-and inter-genetic variations. The analysis of chloroplast regions was done for single regions and as a combination of the four regions. The haplotypes for the multiple analyses showed sufficiently high resolution to enable differentiation between the selected Spathoglottis species. In conclusion, this study showed that the chloroplast DNA regions had high potential to be developed for DNA barcoding of Spathoglottis species. This is the first step towards the development of universal DNA barcoding technique for all native orchids in Malaysia.

A species of bats Hipposideros cineraceus (21 individuals captured, two specimens made) was collected in Fangkong Cave (N: 22°07', E: 107°07', H: 120 m a.s.l.), Zhidong Village, Mingjiang Town, Ningming County, Guangxi Province, South China, in 7 September, 2006. This bat species is the smallest hipposideros in China so far with 32.4 -36.0 mm forearm and 3.7 -4.5 body mass. The noseleaf is relatively simple that its anterior leaf is without a median emargination or supplementary lateral leaflets. The intermediate leaf has four glands with long vibrissae. The posterior leaf possesses three poorly developed septa, dividing it into four cells. The internarial septum is inflated and bulbous. The ear is relatively large, slight beyond the end of muzzle when laid forward. This bat species is the first record from this country. The specimens were preserved in Guangdong Entomological Institute.