In the kingdom of the unexpected, few stories flip the script like seahorses – where fathers carry the babies and give birth in a final storm of muscular contractions. For decades, this reversal puzzled biologists, challenged assumptions about sex roles, and hinted at a deeper evolutionary bargain. What looks like a quirky oddity is, in ...
Sharks, rays, and other chondrichthyans have evolved a remarkable range of reproductive strategies, allowing them to thrive for hundreds of millions of years. Two particularly unusual methods—facultative parthenogenesis and multiple embryos per egg case (MEPE)—may provide key survival advantages, though scientists are still investigating their evolutionary benefits. Facultative Parthenogenesis: Reproduction Without Males Facultative parthenogenesis allows ...
