# Which animals have hymens? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 14, 2002, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animals-have-hymens/103636 "2002-04-14T23:17:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Neptune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@Neptune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neptune)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2002, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animals-have-hymens/103636/1 "2002-04-14T23:17:36Z")
Which animals have hymens? ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2002, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animals-have-hymens/103636/2 "2002-04-14T23:22:57Z")
Only horses and humans. Hell if I know why. ---
**Author:** ![peepthis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9d8465/32.png) [@peepthis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peepthis)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2002, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animals-have-hymens/103636/3 "2002-04-14T23:27:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Reeder \* > \*\*Only horses and humans. > > Hell if I know why. \*\* Wrong. [Quoth the Master](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_226.html): > [@](#): > > Morris to the contrary notwithstanding, retention of the hymen is not unique to humans. **It occurs in horses, whales, moles, mole-rats, hyenas, and perhaps other animals**. (In the great fin whale, in fact, the hymen is not completely destroyed until childbirth.) Why? We haven’t got a clue. “Such adaptations [i.e., retention of the hymen] are explicable only if the male of the species finds it to his advantage to seek a virgin,” Bettyann Kevles observes in Female of the Species (1986). “But there is no evidence that mammal males seek inexperienced females, and no evidence that females with this peculiar anatomical feature remain monogamous… In whales, one can explain the resealing of the vagina as a means of keeping water out of the reproductive organs.” Bolding is mine. ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2002, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animals-have-hymens/103636/4 "2002-04-14T23:57:14Z")
Well…as much as I trust Unca Cec… I can’t find a site to corraberate his post. Do you have one? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2002, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animals-have-hymens/103636/5 "2002-04-15T03:21:20Z")
Neptune: > [@](#): > > Which animals have hymens? The female ones? ---
**Author:** ![jb\_farley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9d8465/32.png) [@jb\_farley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jb_farley)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2002, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animals-have-hymens/103636/6 "2002-04-15T03:23:28Z")
hyena hymens, hmmm? jb ---
**Author:** ![peepthis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9d8465/32.png) [@peepthis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peepthis)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2002, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animals-have-hymens/103636/7 "2002-04-15T03:45:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Reeder \* > \*\*Well…as much as I trust Unca Cec… > > I can’t find a site to corraberate his post. > > Do you have one? \*\* Um, how about the one listed right there in Cecil’s column? Female of the Species: Sex and Survival in the Animal Kingdom, by Bettyann Kevles (1986). Amazon’s even [got it in stock, used](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674298659/qid=1018841979/sr=1-11/ref=sr_1_11/103-3300537-5427031). Do you have a cite for your assertion? ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2002, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-animals-have-hymens/103636/8 "2002-04-15T04:16:38Z")
Llamas have hymens, according to [this site](http://www.kauffmanllamas.com/Pages/Hymenarticle.htm), though they usually atrophy by the age of six months to one year. I believe lemurs also have hymens, but I can’t find a citation.