Biology is Bigger than Binaries

Poster by Franz Anthony
Article by Dr. Jess McLaughlin

Biology is never simple, especially when it comes to sex! Here's some cool examples of how diverse sex can be in nature.

How Many Sexes Are There?
Social insects like honeybees live in colonies where only some of them reproduce- the queen lays eggs, the drones mate with her, and the workers don't mate at all. They don't really fit into two sexes like we're used to! Other organisms like fungi can have thousands of different sex types. It turns out it's really hard to figure out how many sexes there are in nature!

Sex Can Change
Many organisms change their sex characteristics over their lifetimes. Clownfish all start out male, but the biggest one in a group will become female! Other animals go the opposite direction, with fish like wrasse starting out as all female and the oldest fish eventually becoming males. It's not just fish, either- in some birds, if the ovary of a female bird is damaged, it will start to develop male-like plumage and behavior.

Plants Do Things Differently
Plants don't fit into our ideas of sex at all. Many plants, like lilies, produce both types of reproductive cells in the same flower, meaning they're both "male" and "female" at the same time! These plants- which are called "perfect flowers"- aren't the only plants doing things their own way, either. Some plants have male and female flowers on different parts of the same plant, or switch between types over their lives.