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Article: Battle of the hermaphrodites: sexes clash even when sharing the same body.
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- September 16, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Anybody who's ever mused that the world would be better if men got pregnant needs to talk to Nico Michiels. And so does anybody who's asked--or sung--"Why can't a woman be more like a man?" Michiels has seen that world, or at least a version of it, and he's even got pictures to show. It's not pretty, he says.
Many snails, slugs, and worms are so-called internally fertilizing, simultaneous hermaphrodites. In any encounter, such creatures can deliver sperm, receive it for fertilizing eggs internally, or do both.
Michiels, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Tubingen in Germany, offers the striking example of hermaphroditic polyclad flatworms ...