you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]MarkTwainiac 22 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 0 fun23 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Yeah, lots of living things of different kinds and species do things that humans and other mammals can't do.

Seahorses are fish. So are clown fish. They are completely different to mammals, including humans. They live underwater and can't survive out of water. Which is the opposite of us humans and all the other land-dwelling animals who can't survive under water.

What sea horses do, and the way they reproduce, has no relevance to what humans are, can do, the way we reproduce, and how human sex is defined.

Bees live in colonies where a single female queen bee rules; all the rest of the colony are worker bees, whose sex I previously misstated as males. But slushpilot below has corrected me. It's the drone bees who are male, not the worker bees. Which of course makes sense: the job of the male drone bees is to fertilize the eggs laid by the queen bee, whilst the mostly female bees do all the rest of the work of the hive! Same as it ever was. But either way, how bees behave and procreate, and how bee hives function isn't germane to how humans behave and procreate, and how human societies function.

Kangaroos are mammals. Female kangas have two uteruses, and one external pouch, for gestating/growing their young - which are called joeys. Kangas gestate their joeys in their uteruses for only a short period, then the joeys are birthed and they make their way on their own steam to their mothers' external pouches, where they stay for a much longer time, getting their nutrition from milk from their mothers' teats.

But even though kangaroos are land-dwelling mammals like us humans, they are very different to us and many other mammals in numerous ways. Just look at 'em hop. And at their limbs. What kangas do is not germane to discussions of human sex and behavior, and to human reproduction. Just as what seahorses do has no relevance, either.

[–]slushpilot 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Slight correction: bee colonies are >95% female worker bees. Where the queen lays fertilized eggs, only females emerge: usually worker bees, or else a new queen when the hive grows beyond its capacity and is about to swarm (split off and establish a new colony). Where the queen lays haploid (unfertilized) eggs, drone bees emerge. The queen can choose, depending on the size of the cell the workers prepared for her! Drone bees are the males, and their only purpose is to mate with a virgin queen from another colony. Therefore, the hive doesn't spend much of its resources raising very many of them. Before winter, the drones get dragged out of the hive and die. Hence in winter, bee colonies are 100% female.

[–]MarkTwainiac 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Thank you. Actually, the correction you made is a major one, not a slight one, coz the error I made was a big one. In any event, I stand corrected.

I've edited my comment to acknowledge the error I made, but not to erase it, and to include your correction. Again, thanks. Just goes to show I should always check every little detail of what I think I know before posting.

[–]slushpilot 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It didn't affect your greater point, so it didn't seem major. :)