The hermaphroditic animals They are those animals that have both female reproductive organs and male organs. For instance: starfish, snails, worms.
Is about living beings that can produce male and female gametes (cells). It is a characteristic that occurs in fish and in many invertebrate animals, such as mollusks and annelids.
Some hermaphroditic animals can fertilize themselves, if they cannot find a specimen of their species at the time of reproduction. For instance: I had it. However, in most cases they carry out a cross-fertilization (with another individual), which generates new individuals with genetic variability (unlike self-fertilization, in which there is genetic information from a single animal).
Types of hermaphroditism
There are two types of hermaphroditism:
- Sequential hermaphroditism. They are those species that are born with a type of sex and modify it in their adulthood. They can be protandric, when they are born male and become female (for example: the shrimp) or protogynous, when they are born female and become male (for example: parrot fish).
- Simultaneous hermaphroditism. They are those species that have both sexes throughout their lives and can alternately become male or female depending on what the species needs at any given time. For instance: earthworm.
Examples of hermaphroditic animals
| Giant clam | Starfish | Parrotfish |
| Slug | Cleaning prawn | Clownfish |
| Sea acorn | Flat worm | Mangrove riverbed |
| Cabrilla | Ferruginous limpet | Leech |
| Shrimp | Sea hare | Serranus Tortugarum |
| snail | Earthworm | I had |
| Boat shell | Maragota | Urochordates |
| Coral | Red grouper | Scallop |
| Sea sponge | Oyster | Variegated |