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I've been stumped on this on google scholar (maybe because I don't know the right keywords):
What determines sex in cephalopods. I know some molluscs are hermaphroditic, but cephs are not... they are born with a gender that doesn't change. How is this determined? I know in a lot of animals, such as humans, there's a heterogametic sex (XY are men) and a homogametic sex (XX are women) but that even among vertebrates (and the occasional outlying mammal) this doesn't apply, and there are heterogametic female komodo dragons, for example.
I also know there are some fish that change gender based on age or environmental conditions. And colony insects have cases where the queen suppresses sexual development in all other females.
I found an 1959 paper trying to count chromosomes in octopus that said they couldn't find a sex chromosome, but technology was pretty primitive back then. But I seem to not know the right keywords to search for to get much information on this (or chromosome counts, for that matter, although I found a side reference that chromosome number varies pretty widely in cephs, with octopus and nautilus having 20-some-odd and squids and cuttles having 50-something.)
Anybody know this sort of stuff off the top of their heads? (or in handy books on their bookshelves? My books have failed me so far....)
This suggests nobody understands this sort of stuff in molluscs at all: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1691630&blobtype=pdf
What determines sex in cephalopods. I know some molluscs are hermaphroditic, but cephs are not... they are born with a gender that doesn't change. How is this determined? I know in a lot of animals, such as humans, there's a heterogametic sex (XY are men) and a homogametic sex (XX are women) but that even among vertebrates (and the occasional outlying mammal) this doesn't apply, and there are heterogametic female komodo dragons, for example.
I also know there are some fish that change gender based on age or environmental conditions. And colony insects have cases where the queen suppresses sexual development in all other females.
I found an 1959 paper trying to count chromosomes in octopus that said they couldn't find a sex chromosome, but technology was pretty primitive back then. But I seem to not know the right keywords to search for to get much information on this (or chromosome counts, for that matter, although I found a side reference that chromosome number varies pretty widely in cephs, with octopus and nautilus having 20-some-odd and squids and cuttles having 50-something.)
Anybody know this sort of stuff off the top of their heads? (or in handy books on their bookshelves? My books have failed me so far....)
This suggests nobody understands this sort of stuff in molluscs at all: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1691630&blobtype=pdf