Saturday, September 20, 2008

Non-genetic sex-determination systems

Many other sex-determination systems exist. In some species of reptiles, including alligators, some turtles, and the tuatara, sex is determined by the temperature at which the egg is incubated. Other species, such as some snails, practice sex change: adults start out male, then become female. In tropical clown fish, the dominant individual in a group becomes female while the other ones are male.
Some species have no sex-determination system. Earthworms
and some snails hermaphrodites; a few species of lizard, fish, and insect are all female and reproduce by parthenogenesis.
In some
arthropods, sex is determined by infection, as when Bacteria of the genus Wolbachia alter their sexuality; some species consist entirely of ZZ individuals, with sex determined by the presence of Wolbachia.
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