Hermaphrodites combine the male and female sex functions into a single individual, either sequentially or simultaneously. This simple fact means that they exhibit both similarities and differences in the way in which they experience, and respond to, sexual conflict compared to separate-sexed organisms. Here, we focus on clarifying how sexual conflict concepts can be adapted to apply to all anisogamous sexual systems and review unique or especially important aspects of sexual conflict in hermaphroditic animals. These include conflicts over the timing of sex change in sequential hermaphrodites, and in simultaneous hermaphrodites, over both sex roles and the postmating manipulation of the sperm recipient by the sperm donor.
For example, the great majority of tunicates , pulmonate snails, opisthobranch snails , earthworms , and slugs are hermaphrodites. Hermaphroditism is also found in some fish species and to a lesser degree in other vertebrates. Most plants are also hermaphrodites. Historically, the term hermaphrodite has also been used to describe ambiguous genitalia and gonadal mosaicism in individuals of gonochoristic species, especially human beings. The word intersex has come into usage for humans, since the word hermaphrodite is considered to be misleading and stigmatizing , [5] [6] as well as "scientifically specious and clinically problematic. A rough estimate of the number of hermaphroditic animal species is 65, Although the current estimated total number of animal species is about 7.
The Intersex Society of North America closed its doors and stopped updating this website in For current information, links to intersex support groups, and to connect with intersex advocates, please head to interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth. How small does a penis have to be before it counts as intersex? Below we provide a summary of statistics drawn from an article by Brown University researcher Anne Fausto-Sterling.
Hermaphroditism , the condition of having both male and female reproductive organs. Hermaphroditic plants —most flowering plants, or angiosperms —are called monoecious, or bisexual. Hermaphroditic animals—mostly invertebrates such as worms , bryozoans moss animals , trematodes flukes , snails , slugs , and barnacles —are usually parasitic, slow-moving, or permanently attached to another animal or plant. In humans, conditions that involve discrepancies between external genitalia and internal reproductive organs are described by the term intersex.