I was just curious as to how people thought mermaids would be able to mate and produce offspring if they really existed?
2007-10-12 17:12:40 · 16 answers · asked by CrystalDreams 1 in Society & Culture ➔ Mythology & Folklore
Magic!
2007-10-12 17:15:36 · answer #1 · answered by 18th Angel 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Some folk tails describe merfolk as able to step out of the tale and walk among us on land. The stories describe the way to in slave a mermaid is to hide the tale, preventing them from returning to the sea. Every story I remember ends with the mermaid finding the tale and leaving her captor, even if they had married or had children. I guess the folk tails where teaching the idea that, at our core, we are, simply who we are. Thus, a person might change there looks or even behave differently for a while, but in the words of Buckaroo Bonsai, "No matter where you go, there you are!"
2007-10-12 17:46:48 · answer #2 · answered by redpepper_088 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Just like an ordinary fish. Over 97% of all known fishes are oviparous, that is, the eggs develop outside the mother's body. Examples of oviparous fishes include salmon, goldfish, cichlids, tuna, and eels. In the majority of these species, fertilisation takes place outside the mother's body, with the male and female fish shedding their gametes into the surrounding water. However, a few oviparous fishes practise internal fertilisation, with the male using some sort of intromittent organ to deliver sperm into the genital opening of the female.
2007-10-13 03:23:01 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
I'm going to say that either they are egg layers - the chick lays the eggs and the male comes along and releases a cloud of sperm to fertilize them
OR
They are "Live Birth" like Molly's and a male injects his sperm into her egg pouch, the eggs gestate, hatch, then she squirts out a dozen or more fry.
That is actually a fascinating question...
OHH!
What if they are like sea horses and it is the FEMALE that injects HER EGGS into the males Sperm/Gestation Pouch??
That means a live birth as well but it would be a great idea to have the male carry the fry to term.
WOW... Great quite Friday night question... LOL!
2007-10-12 17:55:41 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Two schools of thought.
The mermaid cand part her tail like legs to have an orifice.
There is a flap underneath the scale that would correspond to the pelvic area and she would birth like a human mother
2007-10-12 17:50:28 · answer #5 · answered by Experto Credo 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The same way as porpoises produce offspring. Many Ocean creatures have genitals that are protected within their bodies until there is need for them.
2007-10-12 17:22:00 · answer #6 · answered by Terry 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
I'd imagine, since the merfolk are essentially seagoing mammals, that they'd mate and reproduce like other sea mammals, like dolphins, porpoises and whales.
Like those other mammals, just because genitalia are not observable most of the time doesn't mean that the merfolk don't have them, and use them!
2007-10-12 17:20:07 · answer #7 · answered by Palmerpath 7 · 5⤊ 0⤋
Many of the older drawings of merfolk had genitalia (the female ones had split tails), so people probably pictured it more like people (live birth) than like fish (depositing their seeds and eggs into redds).
2007-10-12 17:22:07 · answer #8 · answered by Lillian 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Yes, magic.
Mermaids and mermen are made, not born. They are people who get magically transformed (pick/make your own backstory) into denizens of the seas. (I've never heard of freshwater mermaids; maybe you can update me.)
2007-10-12 17:19:25 · answer #9 · answered by nora22000 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
hey arent they, like, immortal? they dont need to reproduce. if they did wed all be up to our necks in mermaids in just a few hundred years.
2007-10-12 18:26:49 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋