Female dolphins have a functional clitoris that is similar to that of a human, a new study finds.
A team of scientists led by Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts found bottlenose dolphins have a clitoris-like structure in the vaginal entrance that includes sensory nerves and erectile bodies.
For the study, researchers carried out detailed analysis on the clitorises of 11 females that had died naturally and found strong evidence to support the organ's functionality.
This work revealed many similarities between the dolphin's structure and a female human's clitoris, specifically the erectile tissue looks like that of a human, which means it likely plays a role in providing pleasure.
Within the dolphin's tissue are space for blood to rush, allowing the area to inflate and the clitoris-like structure to become hard.
Dolphins, also like humans, have sex not just for reproducing but also for bonding and pleasure.
'Every time we dissected a vagina, we would see this very large clitoris, and we were curious whether anyone had examined it in detail to see if it worked like a human clitoris,' Lead author and animal genital expert Patricia Brennan of Mount Holyoke College said in a statement.
'We knew that dolphins have sex not just to reproduce, but also to solidify social bonds, so it seemed likely that the clitoris could be functional.'
The first feature was the presence of erectile tissue structures, with many blood vessels.
'What that means is these are tissues that actually engorge with blood, very much like a penis, and the human clitoris,' said Brennan.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10387397/Like-humans-clitoris-key-pleasure-female-dolphins.html 
