Animal Reproduction Topics in Depth
Basics of Reproduction
Must Have Offspring…As depressing as it seems, all animals will eventually die. Well, unless we find a way to turn them into immortal robot creatures, but let's assume that day is still far off....
Gametes
From here on, we're going to focus on the world of sexual reproduction. To do that, we'll discuss its star players: the gametes. Gametes are the haploid sex cells, fondly referred to as sperm and e...
Courtship
Creating gametes is just the beginning of sexual reproduction. Gametes are useless without their counterparts. The process of finding and wooing a suitable partner to share gametes with is called c...
Fertilization
Okay, so now we know how gametes are made AND how mates are selected. Now, we can finally move on to the union of the gametes. First, we will discuss two different modes of introducing the sperm an...
Early Development
Once the gametes have successfully fused, the embryo can begin to develop. The length of time that it takes to develop depends on the animal. Some small fish can develop in a couple of days. Other...
Birth and Hatching
HatchingWhen the oviparous embryo is fully developed, it will hatch from its egg into the environment. Usually, it is time to hatch when the animal has used up all of its nutrition, oxygen, or spac...
Common Mistakes
Basics of ReproductionHaploid vs. Diploid. This is a crucial concept in genetics. You can remember Diploid is Double of each chromosome. Or, think about the dance floor: it takes two people to exec...
Test Your Knowledge
Basics of Reproduction1) The need to reproduce is called a___________. a. law of reproductionb. biological imperativec. stage of pubertyd. life necessitye. biological gain2) The differen...