Timeline for What kind of reproduction methods would allow for an only male animal species to exist?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
23 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Apr 23, 2022 at 13:45 | answer | added | ProjectApex | timeline score: 0 | |
| Apr 16, 2022 at 15:25 | comment | added | Ottie | @Daron if it helps make sense of the definition, the one I was taught is that the female is the sex that contributes the cytoplasm/mitochondria to the zygote. Now we know that sperm can carry some mitochondria and a minimal amount of cytoplasm, so perhaps add "majority of". But by this definition it follows easily that you could have a female-only species, but not a male-only, because the zygote needs to get its cytoplasm from someone, and by definition that's the female. | |
| Apr 16, 2022 at 12:56 | comment | added | John | @Daron welcome to biology, nature does not care much about our definitions. and as I pointed out you can have a species that was previously sexual that is now asexual, but only females can make that transition because you need all the cellular machinery which male gametes do not have. | |
| Apr 16, 2022 at 10:43 | comment | added | Daron | @John You contradict yourself sir! "the definition of females is the sex that produces the bigger gametes. If there are not other gametes they can't have the bigger ones, females require another sex just due to definition." | |
| Apr 16, 2022 at 3:35 | comment | added | John | @Daron except you can, you can have a female species in which all the males are extinct but continue to reproduce, because it is the larger gamete they can still have all the parts needed for a functional embryo, which can let asexual reproduction evolve, while a smaller gamete will lack things as that is the main benefit of having smaller gametes. | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 23:36 | answer | added | Ottie | timeline score: 0 | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 20:39 | comment | added | Ottie | @daron that's correct in the sense that sexual reproduction where the two sexes have equally-sized gametes (not necessarily identical though) are not labelled "male" and "female", e.g. we use "alpha" and "a" for yeast | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 20:03 | comment | added | Daron | @John By the same reasoning we cannot have a female without a male either, because "produce the larger gamete" is meaningless if there is only one type of gamete. | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 19:31 | comment | added | John | You can't , this all comes down to definition, by definition you can't have reproducing population of just males, females yes, hermaphrodites yes, but not males, males require another sex because the definition of males is the sex that produces the smaller gametes. If there are not other gametes they can't have the smaller ones, males require another sex just due to definition. | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 19:14 | comment | added | John | @AlexP that's not a common definition for one thing it doesn't work on anything that uses external fertilization, the most common definition is the sex that produces the largest gamete is the female, the smaller is male, if there is only one sex it is either female, hermaphrodite, or asexual, you have to have two sexes to have males. | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 18:39 | answer | added | Logan R. Kearsley | timeline score: 3 | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 18:37 | comment | added | Daron | While I am in no place to judge, I think the discussion here has more focus on correcting semantics than trying to answer the question as intended. | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 18:34 | comment | added | Jeff Zeitlin | Perhaps your species doesn't have "male" and "female", but is instead isogamous. An example of this in SF is the Hiver from the Traveller role-playing game. | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 18:34 | comment | added | AlexP | @Daron: "Beget" means do something to the female or to the eggs to make them fertile. | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 18:32 | answer | added | AlexP | timeline score: 4 | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 18:32 | answer | added | Daron | timeline score: 1 | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 18:25 | comment | added | Daron | @Alex That is not a very rigorous definition. What is the difference between laying eggs and producing eggs? And what the heckin hooley does "beget" mean? | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 18:16 | comment | added | Escaped dental patient. | Take a look at the Bene Tleilax from the Dune universe. They're all males (the ruling class), the serfs are asexual face-dancers, and the females are just mindless bodies attached to technology to act as wombs for the male clones. | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 18:16 | comment | added | sphennings | @AlexP There are cases of species that are sequentially hermaphroditic, such as ribbon eels and clown fish. They will transition from one sex to another in response to specific circumstances. Within the context of such a species it does make sense to talk about a hermaphroditic male, i.e. a previously female fish that has changed it's sex to male. | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 18:10 | comment | added | AlexP | (1) By definition, the male sex is the sex which begets offspring. The sex which lays eggs or gives birth to offspring is the female sex. A male who produces eggs is a not a male; at best, it is a functional hermaphrodite individual. (2) The phrase "hermaphrodite males" is meaningless. If the species includes functional hermaphrodite individuals, those individuals are neither male nor female. | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 18:04 | comment | added | Mary | I think that if it started producing eggs, we would say it became hermaphroditic. If it started reproducing asexually, we would say that. How would it still be male? | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 18:03 | answer | added | Tom | timeline score: 5 | |
| Apr 15, 2022 at 17:56 | history | asked | Sabrine Crystal | CC BY-SA 4.0 |