The Feminist Fish

Gleep! D8

Ah, that was amusing :)

Hmm.
--I'm just nuts about you, Baby!
--You will be.

I really want to see a woman w/ a car she names "The Anglerfish" who then drives around stealing people truck nuts. :p

I'm not sure "feminist" applies to a species where the male is essentially nothing more than a transport unit for testicles ... ^_^

Actually, not all anglerfish exhibit that behavior, only a few families. Although, from what I can tell, all anglerfish *do* have significant sexual dimorphism, with larger females than males. But, in most families, the male remains a separate organism, attaching only during mating.

The fusion part is the oddest aspect. I can see how evolution would produce smaller and smaller males, and even lead to the males attaching themselves to females (once they get small enough, it'd be hard for them to keep up with the much larger female, after all; most of the other families already have males that attach to the female by biting her during mating), but the fusion of the two organisms - its evolution is the big mystery! Once said fusion occurred, then its not surprising that the superfluous tissue (i.e., everything but the testes) would be lost.

Apparently 8 sets is the largest number found so far. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a few females out there with even more.

Although - the question arises whether it's appropriate to call the post-fusion organism a "female", as it functions more like a hermaphrodite, with the quirk of being a chimera, the testes and ovaries being of different genomes. Arguably, one could describe this as two separate, sexed, organisms fusing into a single hermaphroditic organism.