A man has been discovered to have two extra penises by medical students dissecting his body, marking only the second time ever someone has been found to have three penises.
This incredibly rare triple penis phenomenon was found by students at the University of Birmingham Medical School in the U.K. during a dissection of a 78-year-old man who had donated his body to science, according to a new paper in the publication Journal of Medical Case Reports.
According to the researchers, the man may never have known he had three penises.
This condition, known as triphallia, was only seen in a human for the very first time in 2020 in a newborn, and is thought to affect one in every 5 to 6 million live births.
"Triphallia, a rare congenital anomaly describing the presence of three distinct penile shafts, has been reported only once in the literature," the researchers wrote in the new paper. "Without dissection, this anatomical variation would have remained undiscovered, suggesting the prevalence of polyphallia may be greater than expected."
Having two penises, known as diphallia, has been seen in around 100 human cases, and occurs once in every 5.5 million live births. Usually, doctors remove the extra penises at birth if they are externally visible, but they are often left alone or go unnoticed entirely if hidden inside the body.
The 78-year-old man appeared to have normal genitals externally, but once his penis was dissected, the students discovered two other tiny duplicate penises hidden inside his scrotum.
triphallia, was only seen in a human for the very first time in 2020 in a newborn, and is thought to affect one in every 5 to 6 million live births.
diphallia, has been seen in around 100 human cases, and occurs once in every 5.5 million live births.
so these two conditions, one of which is supposed to be more rare, occur with the same frequency?
Yeah, I would guess the combination of mutations necessary to cause either are similarly as likely. But 3 penises hide better due to the location they would grow. 2 penises would generally be side by side, but for 3, the center one is where you would expect, but the extra two are inside the scrotum.
Not much reason to look inside anyones scrotum for extra penises, alive or dead. So there could be a thousand people alive with 3, and none of them will ever know. And even dead, the odds are pretty low anyone will have reason to look.