[ExI] two genders? is that really all there are? RE: Will ems have two genders?

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

Yeah, I mentioned bdelloid rotifers in my post.

On Sun, May 15, 2016 at 6:38 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>>
>>
> Rafal Smigrodzki
> ​
> Wrote:
>
>  >…Is there a reason to expect that ems would have a male and a female
>> gender?
>
>
> Is there a reason
> ​ to expect​
> that humans or any other multi cellular animal
> ​
> would have a male and a female gender?
> ​The embarrassing answer is "not that we know of". The existence of sex is
> one of the biggest mysteries in Evolutionary Biology. And in fact there are
> a group of animals called "
> Bdelloidea
> ​" that have been around for at least 40 million years and they have no
> males, only females.
> Bdelloidea
> ​ are ​
> ​multi cellular
> ​ and ​big enough to be seen if you have good eyes but have no sex.
>
> Some textbooks say there are 450 different species Bdelloidea
> ​
> but that's misleading, a species is a group that can interbred but
> Bdelloidea
> ​
> engage in no breeding; so really there are 450 types of
> ​
> Bdelloidea
> ​
> that look different from each other, but "species" is a meaningless
> concept for them.
>
>  John K Clark
>
>
>
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>


-- 
Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD
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