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Recent Comments
But no sperm or eggs detected in any individual? In my ingorance , how did it happen? can it be that indivduals shed cells into water and the pre-embryo cell picks up cells from surroundings and some how genes get mixed. i.e. reproduction is sexual because genes mix, but there are no males and females? Very nignorant person wants to understand
Dear Diana, we are also wondering how the exchange of genetic material occurs in bdelloids. Until recently, it was believed that bdelloid populations consist exclusively of females and that new individuals develop from eggs produced by mitosis. It might be that bdelloid males (if they indeed exist) are so rare that they were overlooked by researchers. Another possibility is that these enigmatic males (or perhaps hermaphrodites) appear only under certain conditions. It is also possible that males are so tiny or morphologically weird that they were not recognised as bdelloid males.