5 Aquatic Creatures That Redefine "Sexuality"

I love me some human transgenders, because it helps me contemplate the divine collective spirit that connects us all.  It allows me to perceive identity as something fluid and to be self-actualized; instead of engineered by society.    

These notions have assisted me in choosing to become a feminist, have allowed me to believe in a love that defies societal constraints or dynamics, it's basically why... 
...I'm so groovy.  

But what I love most about the androgynous, the transgenders, transsexuals, hermaphrodites, and transvestites - is their truly uncanny ability to reflect ourselves as a society back to ourselves as a society, and we can see how while we endeavor to appear to become so sexy in the eye of some imagined beholder (no matter how programmed some of us are for whose eyes these days...) on occasion we fail to see how silly we look to other beholden. 

Not to say Nikki Nicole looks silly but don't we all look kinda silly?  If you really think about all the pompadour and pageantry we put on for each other, which ultimately ends in disappointment and heartache, only because we have not dared to fully know nor express our truest self and instead catered to a lesser lustful self?  

So it is with the greatest pleasure and reverence do I bring you five aquatic creatures that redefine notions of "sexuality".

#1). The Blue-headed wrasse fish 

This fish lives in harems, about a dozen females to one male.(Sounds prudy, pimp 'amirite bromosexuals?)  But when the colorful male dies, the largest female in the harem changes into a male at will, even adopting the same flashy colors.  The transformation takes roughly a week, at this time she dons not merely the colors but behaviors of a male, capable of successfully fertilizing the eggs of his/her former companions with the sperm he/she is now creating.

  

Chromosomes don't govern the process of sex, merely the social signal of the disappearance of the male does in this wondrous fish. 

#2). The marine worm, Bonellia viridis 

All of these worms are female, the males, a distinct separate sex, live inside of them.  The 8-10 centimeters long female dwarfs the 5 millimeter long male.  The male lives inside of the female's womb.  Feeding off of her nutrients and only releasing sperm when she's laying eggs.  As larvae they are initially sexless, unless consumed by a female, where her hormones turn the larvae male.  Larvae left untouched by a female's proboscis develop into females themselves.

#3). Platyhelminthes, or flatworms 

  

(They're really beautiful, aren't they?)

Flatworms are hermaphrodites. When two members of the species meet, they have a peculiar duel: they whip out their penises like swordsmen, then try to stab each other with them. The successful stabber becomes the male, while the recipient of the stab becomes the female.  (Talk about awkwardly losing your virginity).  Then it's on like squirmy wormy Donkey Kong all night long!  

#4). Bdelloid Rotifers   

These little ladies have the ability to absorb genetic materials from other species and acquire their abilities. Bdelloid rotifers excised males from their gene pool 80 million years ago.


Sexual reproduction is evolution's way of increasing genetic diversity. There are plenty of species that still reproduce asexually, but there are very few that developed sexual reproduction and then subsequently lost it like this species. The ability to incorporate genetic material from their surroundings may be a strategy for maximizing genetic diversity in lieu of genetic recombination through sexual reproduction.  

Quite fascinating when you really think about it.  Is this the next step in sexual evolution, genetic absorption from the environment within the confines of a perpetual sisterhood?

#5). Ostrea puelchana oyster  

This South American oyster has a reproductive strategy known as rhythmic successive hermphroditism. Larvae settle and, after about a year, become sexually mature males. Then, as they continue to develop, they turn into hermaphrodites. Finally, they end their several years life as females. But not every single Ostrea get to enjoy life as a rhythmic successive hermaphrodite. This species has two, separate reproductive strategies. Ostrea puelchana also possess neotenous dwarf males.

These dwarf males only live for about a year, and they are only found attached to 17% of adult Ostrea. It appears that the dwarf males can only reproduce with exclusively female individuals, not hermaphrodites. Interestingly, when adult density increases, the number of females decreases.

So, for this oyster, a higher density of hermaphrodites is a reproductive advantage when the population is large–-this doubles partners to spawn with–-but when the population is small, having dedicated males attached to your shell increases the odds of successful reproduction.

Could you imagine, being a human being, only starting your life as male, living mid-life as a hermaphrodite, and ending your life as female? 

Sigh, bitch, I didn't think so.