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To be fair, you almost always still need two individuals to get reproduction going - you just don't need to be as picky about which two individuals as you might
by tsimionescu 1y ago
To be fair, you almost always still need two individuals to get reproduction going - you just don't need to be as picky about which two individuals as you might think. There are a rare few animals that can sometimes self-reproduce, but it's not a common strategy in the animal kingdom, even among hermaphroditic animals.
- dekhn 1y agoParthenogenesis is not uncommon in animals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_taxa_that_use_parthenogenesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_taxa_that_use_partheno... (I am mostly quibbling with "rare few animals" but I can't really say much about the relative prevalence of parthenogenesis compared to sexual reproduction.
- duskwuff 1y agoThey're less rare than you might think. Parthenogenesis ("virgin birth") occasionally occurs in some domestic birds, including chickens and turkeys. Due to the way sex determination works in birds, the offspring created this way are always male. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579119370518 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003257911...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- rsynnott 1y agoThere are also a number of species of lizards, and one snake, which reproduce exclusively via parthenogenesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis_in_squamates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis_in_squamates In some though not all such species, there are no known male examples _at all_ (though in reptiles some forms of parthenogenesis can produce males).
- dexterdog 1y agoThank you so much for introducing me to this concept. I knew the word thanks to Shriekback. I used to have ducks. At one point when I only had 3 females, I found a broken egg with a fetus in it. I knew they were all female, but couldn't convince anybody of what I saw.