Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The word is most often used for the offspring of mammals, but can be used for any animal that gives birth to multiple young. In comparison, a group of eggs and the offspring that hatch from them are frequently called a clutch, while young birds are often called a brood. Animals from the same litter are referred to as littermates.
The traditional modes of reproduction include oviparity, taken to be the ancestral condition, traditionally where either unfertilised oocytes or fertilised eggs are spawned, and viviparity traditionally including any mechanism where young are born live, or where the development of the young is supported by either parent in or on any part of their body.
In animals, the process involves a sperm fusing with an ovum, which eventually leads to the development of an embryo. Depending on the animal species, the process can occur within the body of the female in internal fertilization, or outside in the case of external fertilization. The fertilized egg cell is known as the zygote. [2] [5]
Animals with few offspring can devote more resources to the nurturing and protection of each individual offspring, thus reducing the need for many offspring. On the other hand, animals with many offspring may devote fewer resources to each individual offspring; for these types of animals it is common for many offspring to die soon after birth ...
Each of these offspring contains numerous genes which have coding for specific tasks and properties. Males and females both contribute equally to the genotypes of their offspring, in which gametes fuse and form. An important aspect of the formation of the parent offspring is the chromosome, which is a structure of DNA which contains many genes. [1]
The offspring produced by apomictic parthenogenesis are full clones of their mother, as in aphids. [citation needed] Parthenogenesis involving meiosis is more complicated. In some cases, the offspring are haploid (e.g., male ants). In other cases, collectively called automictic parthenogenesis, the ploidy is restored to diploidy by various ...
Another example is the blue wildebeest, the calves of which can stand within an average of six minutes from birth and walk within thirty minutes; [5] [6] they can outrun a hyena within a day. [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ] Such behavior gives them an advantage over other herbivore species and they are 100 times more abundant in the Serengeti ecosystem than ...
A litter consists of the puppies born from the same pregnancy. A whelp is a newborn puppy and giving birth to dogs is called whelping. Dogs commonly give birth in a whelping box, a simple box or pen provided to the dam to help shelter and contain the puppies. A person who intentionally mates dogs to produce puppies is referred to as a dog breeder.