Maybe it’s like Messor ibericus and a form of xenoparity, where one species is giving birth to an entirely separate species alongside its own.
psx_crab@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Which only mean they aren’t a frog nor a pig, they’re an entirely new species where the male have a frog-like form and female have a pig-like form.
Deceptichum@quokk.au 2 days ago
tetris11@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Or they’re all chimeras, but the frog part is hemizygous and the piggie part is X recessive and requires two alleles
jimmux@programming.dev 1 day ago
I never heard of xenoparity before, this is fascinating.
Supposedly it only evolved about 5 million years ago, and some colonies still rely on external populations? Nature is constantly finding new ways to undermine our attempts to think we know how shit works.
rapchee@lemmy.world 2 days ago
holy wtf
TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 1 day ago
First, thank you for pointing this out. I had to go and fill my brain hole with a bunch of information about this absolutely fascinating discovery. I really thought you were discussing some science fiction concept initially.
Second, what in the actual fuck did I just read?!?
affenlehrer@feddit.org 2 days ago
Like puppets or Muppets
The_v@lemmy.world 2 days ago
A form of sexual dimorphism. Honestly compared to real examples like the angler fish it’s not even that weird.