Animals, as individual organisms, appear and disappear, but the species to which they belong continues to exist, this occurs through reproduction, one of the vital functions of living beings, within the animal kingdom we can find two reproductive strategies, asexual reproduction and asexual reproduction.reproduction, which are more common in animals.
Sexual reproduction is the typical breeding strategy of animals, although some can reproduce exceptionally thanks to an asexual strategy, so in this article of Animal Expert we will explain what is the sexual reproduction of animals.
- Sexual reproduction is the reproductive strategy that many animals and plants adopt to give birth to new individuals and perpetuate the species.
The characteristics that define this type of reproduction are multiple, first, sexual reproduction involves two individuals, a man and a woman, unlike asexual reproduction, in which there is only one, both have organs called gonads, which produce gametes, these gametes are sexual cells, eggs generated by the ovaries in females and sperm produced by the testes in males.
When an egg and sperm fuse, they give birth to a zygote; this union is called fertilization.Fertilization can take place inside or outside the animal, depending on the species, so there is external fertilization, in which females and males expel their gametes into the aquatic environment for fertilization, and there is an internal fertilization, in which the sperm finds the egg.inside the female.
After fertilization, the formed zygote will have 50% maternal DNA and 50% paternal DNA, i.e. the descendant generated by sexual reproduction will have genetic material from both parents.
Sexual reproduction in animals involves several stages, starting with gametogenesis, this phenomenon consists in the production and development of female and male gametes in the female and male gonads, respectively.
From germ cells and through a type of cell division known as meiosis, females and males create their gametes.The speed of creation and maturation of gametes will depend on several factors, but mainly on the species and sex of the individual.
After gametogenesis, the mechanism by which fertilization occurs is mating.Through the action of hormones, people of childbearing potential will seek the company of the opposite sex to mate and, after cutting, copulation will occur in animals that have internal fertilization.external fertilization, gametes will be released into the environment for fertilization.
After fertilization occurs the last phase of sexual reproduction, fertilization, which consists of a series of molecular alterations that allow the fusion of the nucleus of the egg with the nucleus of the sperm.
The types of sexual reproduction that exist in animals are related to the size of the gametes that will participate in fertilization, so we have isogamia, anisogamy and ogamy.
There are as many examples of sexual reproduction as there are animal species.
It should be noted that there are also hermaphrodites, with both female and male reproductive organs, but they can only act as females or males during mating, in this case there is no self-infection.
Now that you know what the characteristics of sexual reproduction are, it is important to know what the differences between sexual reproduction and asexual are, sexual reproduction is a different reproductive strategy to sexual reproduction in several moments, the first is duration, in asexual reproduction, the duration is much shorter than in sexual reproduction.
The second and most important point of difference is that the result of asexual reproduction are individuals equal to the parent, that is, without any modification of DNA, they are cloned; in short, in sexual reproduction there are two individuals, that is, two different ones.genetic materials. Together, they result in a third individual with 50% of each individual’s genetic material.On the other hand, in asexual reproduction, there is no production of gametes and the result are identical individuals, without genetic improvement and the offspring tends to be weaker.
See 15 examples of hermaphrodites and how they are reproduced in this Animal Expert article.
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