Weird World
The human race has lived on Earth for about 200,000 years. Currently, the human civilization is at its peak of scientific discovery. However, even though scientists keep discovering new things, many people are not aware of the astonishing things that already exist around us. For example, different animals have different means of reproduction, and some of them are rather weird. Below are three animal ways of reproduction I found particularly amusing:
Anglerfish (Ceratiidae)
This group of Anglerfish has one of the most unusual methods of reproduction. First, the males have well developed sensory organs, which help them find females who release a pheromone. When the adult male or males find the females, they bite into them and release a certain chemical that melts the mouth of the male and the skin of the female, merging them together. The males’ bodies slowly die out except the gonads which produce the sperm. They stay in the female until she produces egg cells, which are then fertilized.
Clown fish (Amphiprioninae)
A group of clownfish has a strict hierarchy. In this hierarchy only the first two clownfish meet. The biggest and most aggressive female is at the top, while the second strongest clownfish is the male that mates with the female. All the laid eggs are born as male clown fish. If the female is removed from the group, (usually by death) the mating male becomes the female and the next male in line becomes the mating male. This causes all the clownfish to move one step up in the hierarchy.
Fire Ants
Fire ant colonies are made of a female Queen and primarily female workers. The Queen usually produces more female than male eggs, because male ants are useless except for breeding. These queens want to pass on their genes to other generations so they lay eggs with male ants. In turn, the male ants mate with the queen, and usually live up to 5-6 days. Some of the eggs laid by the queen are killed by the worker ants since not many of them are needed.
Weird world, or not? What do you think?
Dominik Skoko