Why are their two sexes?

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The vast majority of fauna have two sexes. Why aren’t more animals hermaphrodites?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

TL;DR: Inbreeding is bad.

The process of replication of DNA isn’t perfect, and often leads to some accidental changes in the process. Sometimes these affect irrelevant sections, and sometimes they just make the whole thing completely break down. But sometimes they lead to problems like genetic disorders.

If your gene pool is too small, then detrimental changes are passed down to future generations much more often, and will have a tendency to spread down the generations. This is why over time some isolated groups (either by location, or by social class prejudices – such as various royal family lineages over history) end up finding themselves embroiled in health problems.

Hermaphroditism would tend to have this issue, because theres just one set of genetic material that risks just building up more and more errors. I know some species have found other ways around it; but having the ability to share and spread genetic material around is simply another way around it.

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