but as far as I know there hasn't been a high profile case of an animal which has changed its gender expression.
Sequential hermaphroditism (called
dichogamy in
botany) is a type of
hermaphroditism that occurs in many
fish,
gastropods, and plants. Sequential hermaphroditism occurs when the individual changes sex at some point in its life.
[1] In particular, a sequential hermaphrodite produces eggs (female
gametes) and sperm (male
gametes) at different stages in life.
[2]Species that can undergo these changes from one sex to another do so as a normal event within their reproductive cycle that is usually cued by either social structure or the achievement of a certain age or size.
[3]
In animals, the different types of change are male to female (
protandry), female to male (
protogyny),
[4] female to hermaphrodite (
protogynous hermaphroditism), and male to hermaphrodite (
protandrous hermaphroditism). Both protogynous and protandrous hermaphroditism allow the organism to switch between functional male and functional female.
[5] These various types of sequential hermaphroditism may indicate that there is no advantage based on the original sex of an individual organism.
[5]Those that change gonadal sex can have both female and male germ cells in the
gonads or can change from one complete gonadal type to the other during their last life stage.
[6]
In plants, individual flowers are called dichogamous if their function has the two sexes separated in time, although the plant as a whole may have functionally male and functionally female flowers open at any one moment. A flower is protogynous if its function is first female, then male, and protandrous if its function is male then female. It used to be thought that this reduced
inbreeding,
[7] but it may be a more general mechanism for reducing pollen-pistil interference.
[8]
ProtandryEdit
Ocellaris clownfish,
Amphiprion ocellaris, a protandrous animal species
In general, protandrous hermaphrodites are animals that develop as males, but can later reproduce as females.
[9] However, protandry features a spectrum of different forms, which are characterized by the overlap between male and female reproductive function throughout an organism's lifetime:
- Protandrous sequential hermaphroditism: Early reproduction as a pure male and later reproduction as a pure female.
- Protandrous hermaphroditism with overlap: Early reproduction as a pure male and later reproduction as a pure female with an intervening overlap between both male and female reproduction.
- Protandrous simultaneous hermaphroditism: Early pure male reproduction and later reproduction in both sexes.[10]
Furthermore, there are also species that reproduce as both sexes throughout their lifespans (i.e
simultaneous hermaphrodites), but shift their reproductive resources from male to female over time.
[11]
for them at one point, now I’m starting to really resent them because of the ridiculous talking points from thier groupies
) but it does seem like pandering for "woke points" at some point. This type of benetton ad pandering used to be laughable and made fun of due to the insincerity and now its pushed without an sense of irony. Below is what the average American Netflix original is like now to some extent
millennials