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richmackin's lj, there was a stupid, incorrect statement by an anti gay marriage bigot to the effect of "All species require two opposite sexes to reproduce."
Not only is this not true of all species (all bacteria and many if not most protists reproduce by splitting in half; many plants have both male and female parts on the same individual) it's not even true of all animals: earthworms, snails and most barnicles are hermaphroditic, aphids and many stick insects are all female, and some fish can change sexes in the middle of their life.
Fungi have more than two sexes--in fact, check out this BBC article for the total number of fungal sexes, as well as an evolutionary explanation of why we only have two:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/specials/sheffield_99/447058.stm
richmackin's lj, there was a stupid, incorrect statement by an anti gay marriage bigot to the effect of "All species require two opposite sexes to reproduce." Not only is this not true of all species (all bacteria and many if not most protists reproduce by splitting in half; many plants have both male and female parts on the same individual) it's not even true of all animals: earthworms, snails and most barnicles are hermaphroditic, aphids and many stick insects are all female, and some fish can change sexes in the middle of their life.
Fungi have more than two sexes--in fact, check out this BBC article for the total number of fungal sexes, as well as an evolutionary explanation of why we only have two:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/specials/sheffield_99/447058.stm