Chapter 868 Terrible

"So, am I a female bee or a drone?!"

This annoying question once again gave Joan a headache.

...

...

Joan couldn't help becoming irritable.

Fortunately, he soon woke up, knowing that he could not indulge his emotional out-of-control, otherwise it might stimulate the latent "worm-like virus" in his body to become active, invade his brain, and turn him into a crazy giant worm through and through. Just like the final tragic end of the vast majority of "worm disease" patients.

Taking a deep breath, Qiao An changed back to human form in time, and cast the 2-ring arcane "Tranquillity" to calm down his emotions.

No matter how confused, depressed, or unable to figure it out, the physiological structure of the giant bee is there, and it will never change due to its own emotions.

What Joan has to do now is not to complain, but to accept the reality, and from an objective point of view, find a reasonable explanation for the special physiological structure of the giant bee.

After a long time of thinking, Joan's thoughts became clearer.

Judging by the size of the giant bee, it is unlikely to be a social animal.

Since they do not live in groups, it is doomed that giant bees cannot develop a highly social community, just like their miniature distant relatives, such as bees and wasps, are dioecious, and only one queen bee is responsible for the generation.

On the other hand, the number of giant bees in nature is very rare. If this population wants to continue, the number one problem is to establish an efficient mating mechanism.

If giant bees are dioecious and interbreed like humans, it will be too difficult to find a suitable mate.

A lonely giant bee finally found a fellow bee and was about to woo a mate, but it turned out that the other bee was of the same sex.

So, is there a more efficient way to increase the chances of giant bees successfully choosing a mate and even mating and reproducing?

Of course there is, and there is more than one way.

For example, reproduction by fission, as in amoebas, or parthenogenesis, as in some salamanders—in fact, drones are also the product of parthenogenesis.

In addition, another strategy is androgynous.

Assume that there is a population of organisms whose reproductive mode is dioecious, heterosexual mating; the other mode is hermaphrodite, heterosexual mating.

Through simple calculations, it is not difficult to find that the probability of a creature successfully choosing a mate is twice that of the first method by adopting the second method of reproduction, which can provide a stronger guarantee for the continuation of the species.

By observing the sexual characteristics of his own giant bee, Joan suspected that the giant bee is likely to be a hermaphrodite.

Most hermaphroditic animals are still cross-breeding, such as earthworms, and the "lock-throat monster" that Joan once dissected by himself.

Why do you bother to find a spouse when you obviously have a full set of reproductive organs of both sexes?

This is mainly due to genetic diversity considerations.

If hermaphroditic and self-reproductive, the resulting offspring are equivalent to constantly copying the same mother, there will be little change, and the potential for population evolution will also decrease.

If the environment changes suddenly, the original mother will die before it can adapt to the new environment, and the offspring who have completely copied its genes will also face the same predicament, and may go extinct together.

In order to adapt to an environment that may change at any time, it is necessary for a species to maintain its own genetic diversity. Sexual reproduction and crossbreeding are effective strategies to ensure this evolutionary element.

Of course, some species do exist in the world, not only hermaphroditic, but self-reproducing.

As far as Joan knew, slugs would occasionally self-fertilize when they couldn't find a mate, which was a kind of backup breeding plan in desperation.

Some rare strange monsters living in the dark region also have this kind of wonderful attribute, and they seem to be more willing to attack themselves than crossbreeding.

However, most of the strange monsters have magical or supernatural powers, and their ability to resist drastic changes in the environment is stronger than ordinary creatures in nature, which cannot be generalized.

...

From the perspective of a researcher, to test whether the giant bee can reproduce itself, whether it can produce fertilized eggs, whether the fertilized eggs can hatch normally, and whether the offspring produced have some kind of birth defects... These experiments All great value.

If Joan had other giant bee samples available, he would definitely experiment with them.

However, now he only has himself as a sample to use, no matter how curious he is and how much he insists on scientific research, he can't overcome the obstacle in his heart and do any self-reproduction experiments on himself.

This shit is too creepy, Joan really can't accept it!

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