• Question: 1 snail is both genders (boy and girl). Why is this?

    Asked by sharkytheshark to Carla, Madgie, Nick, Vicky, Werner on 20 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Werner Muller

      Werner Muller answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      The term biologists use is hermaphrodite. This is an animal that is both male (boy) and female (girl). A lot of animals are like this, snails and slugs are examples.

    • Photo: Marlene Lorgen

      Marlene Lorgen answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      As Werner has said, this is quite common in animals. In some species of fish, individuals may start life as one sex and change to the other during the course of their lives depending on factors such as predation, resource availability and male:female ratios in the population! By being a hermaphrodite, animals often do not need to find a mate to reproduce.

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