I assumed it’s the one that carries/lays the offspring but I understood sea horse males carry the offsprings
In: Biology
Males produce sperm cells, females produce egg cells. The male sea horse is the one producing sperm, even though he also carries the embryo’s (the female deposits her eggs in the male’s brood pouch, where they are fertilized with the male’s sperm).
This classification also extends to plants, by the way. Many plant species have structures producing egg cells and structures producing sperm cells on the same plant, so then we refer only to those specific structures as male or female. For instance, flowers often have both stamens, which are male, and a pistil, which is female. But sometimes there will be some flowers on a plant that just have stamens, while others just have pistils. So then the entire flower is male or female. An individual plant may have flowers of both types, but there are also plant species where any individual plant only has flowers (or generally reproductive structures) of the same sex. This is true for many tree species, for example. So in that case, we refer to the entire plant as either male or female.
Latest Answers