I was told all humans start as female and then the ovaries descend and become testis. Why are females limited in this capacity?
In: Biology
Not all species are limited in this way, species like fish which produce many thousands or even millions of eggs can produce them all through their life. They would never be able to store a lifetime of eggs, just like males of many species would never be able to store a lifetime of sperm. When you can’t store it you have to make it. But a woman only goes through a few hundred egg cells in her life and that’s easy to store a lifetime supply of.
So why would you want to store them? Well, cell division is a risky thing. There’s always a chance that something will go wrong. If your egg-generating cells are constantly producing new eggs, there’s a chance as time goes by that the egg quality will get worse and worse. But if you make them all right off at the start, that’s less of a problem (still can be a problem, but less of one).
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