Valentine Pontifex

This is how Fark described it:

Decency surrenders?

ashibaka

These jokes started out stiff, and now they're just getting stiffer and stiffer.

I mean, that "Anna Nicole Smith is aroused" thing is just below the belt.

[Arrrgh bad joke! <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> Forgive me, Daddy, for I have sinned!]

Occam's Aftershave

100 million year old... Anna Nicole... Thanks guys, I just blew the glass of wine I was sipping out my nose and all over the keyboard! That was the funniest thing I've seen in many months. Kepp up the good work

-O.A.

lpetrich

It's internal fertilization. And I agree that it's not as necessary in water as on land. In fact, internal fertilization has evolved not only several times among land animals (ancestors of amniotes, insects, arachnids, etc.), but also at least once among land plants.

MrDarwin

No, the whole point of sexual reproduction is to mix up the genes in new combinations. Sexual reproduction is nearly ubiquitous in multicellular animals.

Using a penis for sperm delivery is more efficient and much less wasteful than the alternative used by many aquatic animals: releasing the sperm and eggs indiscriminately into the water, to come together entirely by chance.

Such random fertilization occurs most frequently in organisms with rather poorly developed nervous systems (e.g., sponges, coelenterates) or those that are sessile and have no choice (again, sponges and many coelenterates like coral; molluscs like most bivalves, arthropods like barnacles, etc.). But in mobile organisms with a more complex nervous system, those with a penis frequently select their mates in some way--although whether this arose before or after the origin of the penis is debatable (it may have been a desirable side-effect with the result that there were strong selection pressures to retain the penis in evolution).