{"id":10557,"date":"2021-02-22T09:44:50","date_gmt":"2021-02-22T14:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/?p=10557"},"modified":"2026-02-23T15:51:47","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T20:51:47","slug":"cryptic-sex-how-female-and-unisexual-animals-reproduce-asexually-without-males","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/2021\/cryptic-sex-how-female-and-unisexual-animals-reproduce-asexually-without-males\/","title":{"rendered":"Cryptic sex: How female and unisexual animals reproduce \u2018asexually\u2019 \u2014 without males"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<section class=\"w-screen px-6 cu-section cu-section--white ml-offset-center md:px-8 lg:px-14\">\n    <div class=\"space-y-6 cu-max-w-child-5xl  md:space-y-10 cu-prose-first-last\">\n\n            <div class=\"cu-textmedia flex flex-col lg:flex-row mx-auto gap-6 md:gap-10 my-6 md:my-12 first:mt-0 max-w-5xl\">\n        <div class=\"justify-start cu-textmedia-content cu-prose-first-last\" style=\"flex: 0 0 100%;\">\n            <header class=\"font-light prose-xl cu-pageheader md:prose-2xl cu-component-updated cu-prose-first-last\">\n                                    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold !mt-2 mb-4 md:mb-6 relative after:absolute after:h-px after:bottom-0 after:bg-cu-red after:left-px text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] pb-5 after:w-10 text-cu-black-700 not-prose\">\n                        Cryptic sex: How female and unisexual animals reproduce \u2018asexually\u2019 \u2014 without males\n                    <\/h1>\n                \n                                \n                            <\/header>\n\n                    <\/div>\n\n            <\/div>\n\n    <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n<p>Author: Dr. Root Gorelick &#8211; Professor, Biology, <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/carleton-university-900\">Carleton University<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not all species need sperm to fertilize an egg for sexual reproduction. Some species need sperm in order to induce completion of egg nucleus development, but then never use the sperm\u2019s DNA. I describe how this self-sexual reproduction occurs in many animals, including some insects, molluscs, fish, amphibians and reptiles, but not mammals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People have long understood that ejaculate is needed for human pregnancy, but did not understand much more. In the late 1600s, the Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who was one of the first microbiologists, thought&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/science-nature\/scientists-finally-unravel-mysteries-sperm-180963578\/\">his own sperm were parasites<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/cryptic-sex-how-female-and-unisexual-animals-reproduce-asexually-without-males-154998\">more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Author: Dr. Root Gorelick &#8211; Professor, Biology, Carleton University Not all species need sperm to fertilize an egg for sexual reproduction. Some species need sperm in order to induce completion of egg nucleus development, but then never use the sperm\u2019s DNA. I describe how this self-sexual reproduction occurs in many animals, including some insects, molluscs, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10559,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10557\/revisions\/10559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}