what would happen if a hermafrodite made themselves pregnant?

Question

what would happen if a hermafrodite (did i spell it right?) made themselves pregnant? would the offspring be identical? would it count as asexual reproduction?

Answer 1

In humans, hermaphrodites are infertile. They are often called the 3rd sex or intersex. There are various kinds of the 3rd sex due to the type of genetic abnormality. At birth, the baby could have an ambiguous genitalia such as an enlarged clitoris that looks sort of like a penis (for something weird look up spotted hyenas...) or a small penis or non-descended testes. There are also cases where you look externally like a girl, then at puberty you suddenly grow a penis due to surge of testosterone. Very common in the Dominican Republic.

Regardless, to be pregnant, a human needs ovaries and uterus (internal) and a vagina (external). The ovaries need to release an egg that a sperm can fertilize. Hermaphrodites are often a mix of the two sexes, and/or missing the "appropriate" organs.

Other species can be hermaphrodites and sexually or assexually reproduce just fine. Some species of fish actually switch their sex (think Jurassic Park movie). Some species actually only are female. Other species that reproduce sexually but in the hermaphrodite capacity do not create idential copies of themselves as that would be asexual reproduction. Those species mate...it's very complicated and depends on a variety of genetic, physical, hormonal, and social factors.

Answer 2

A hermaphrodite is an organism with both male and female reproductive organs and which produces both eggs and sperm. Hermaphrodites are widespread throughout the natural world both in invertebrate animals and especially among plants, hermaphroditism is much rarer in vertebrates and completely absent in mammals so there will never be a 'pregnancy' arising from hermaphrodites.

In many hermaphrodites there is outcrossing i.e. sperm produced cannot fertilize the eggs produced from the same individual. In this case the outcome is no different from any other form of sexual reproduction, offspring are genetically unique.

In some species 'selfing' is possible whereby eggs and sperm from the same individual combine to form a new embryo. This is much rarer in nature than outcrossing e.g. there is only one species of fish where this is known to occur. Again, owing to meiosis in which each gamete (= egg or sperm) has a different combination of genetic variants each offspring will be different, however as there is a more limited choice of genetic variation than when parents are unrelated inbreeding will be at a higher level than outcrossing species and so there is a risk of accumulating unfavourable genetic mutations. This type of mating system normally also includes a low number of males so that there is some outcrossing to maintain genetic variation.

There is just one thing. Somebody described meiosis as producing half DNA strands. This is not true. During meiosis chromosomes inherited from each parent combine and exchange fragments of genes in a roughly random way and then separate. Each germ cell ends up with half the number of chromosomes of the parent each with a unique combination of genetic variants. These all have 2 DNA strands.

Hermaphrodites are all involved in sexual reproduction as they produce germ cells from meiosis. All asexual reproduction is a result of mitosis where there is no rearrangement of genes.

Answer 3

It would count as sexual reproduction, because two separate gametes join to form a new embryo.
The criterion for "sexual" reproduction is that meiosis occurs, splitting the DNA into two half-strands of genetic material (like a zipper unzipping); then a half-strand unites with a different half-strand to form a different whole strand of genetic material. This cell with the new strand of DNA is an embryo and all it has to do is grow and develop.
Offspring would not be identical. If they could be, even different children from same two parents would sometimes be identical, right? As it is, identical children are produced by twinning, when an embryo splits into two embryos with identical DNA. Still, self-fertilization would produce less diversity than cross-fertilization.
Many lower animals, such as earthworms and snails, are hermaphroditic. Self-fertilization is rare even in hermaphroditic animals, but planaria (flatworms) do fertilize themselves.
Self-fertilization is very common in flowering plants, since most flowers contain both male and female sex cells.

Answer 4

Most Lay Eggs! They dont get pregnant!
As it only takes ONE snail introduced to a fish tank (ask any Fish-keeper) to soon have it over-run with them its certainly REPRODUCTION! Are they identical? No the shells are differently marked or shaped. Other Hermaphrodites are the same. If you had TWO then you'd have more snails as both would produce young!
Not ALL snails are Hermaphrodites so they are the ones that could be said to use Sexual - Reproduction!

Answer 5

Hermaphrodites, at least human ones, can not get themselves pregnant. There is no such thing in the human species as a true hermaphrodite - only the appearance of dual genitalia, but not FUNCTIONAL dual genitalia. Only one of the genitalia may be functional, or neither, depending on the individual case, but NEVER both.

Answer 6

Wow. This is a really good question! Idle... but good.

I the previous answers do make sense though. Because Hermaphrodites usually seem to choose to dress and live according to their stronger sexual trait. So it makes sense that one of the two sets of reproductive organs would be stronger.

Answer 7

hermaphrodite . Would produce offspring genetically identical to parent -basically clones . Does happen in some species -birds come to mind.

Answer 8

medical impossibility ! as there will allways be a stronger hormone ie either male or female ..
as in snails even though they are hermaphrodite they still need 2 snails to reproduce

Answer 9

hermaphrodites reproduce asexually - no question of pregnancy

Answer 10

can't happen - they're infertile.

Happens in snails though. Seems to work fine there.