- Joined
- Feb 28, 2021
Ackshually some cnidarians like comb jellies are simultaneous hermaphrodites and produce sperm and eggs at the same time, while others like many sea anemones are sequential hermaphrodites (produce one form of sex cell, and then the other). I'm not sure they've even worked out how sex determination works in cnidarians, but nevertheless scientists do have special words for "starts male and becomes female" (protandry), "starts female and becomes male" (protogyny), "starts female and becomes male and female" (gynodioecious) and they acknowledge that anisogamous organisms only ever produce male or female gametes, so in that regard their sex isn't a spectrum. (You'll often notice that "friendly neighbourhood biologists" who pop up like this will no doubt use male and female in their research, but will suddenly insist there's no such thing as a sex binary when talking about people).BTW this is her website. Her specialty is Ocean Ecology, especially that of cnidarians. I doubt she spends a lot of time doing human karyotyping, or that she is able to teach students to prepare their karyotypes. BTW cnidarians -- jellyfish and friends -- are sexual, and their sexes don't come in "spectrums".
Cnidarians are also completely alien to human beings - they branched off before bilateral symmetry developed (and thus have radial symmetry) - so it's worth once again pointing out "humans aren't