Male pregnancy in the animal kingdom

[TeleMad]

I've known for years that the male seahorse "gets pregnant". But just how literal should that be taken? I had never seen the details spelled out clearly, but last night I pointed out that the male searhorse gets pregnant and someone replied with a link.

"The female [seahorse] inserts her ovipositor into the male’s brood pouch, where she deposits her eggs, which the male fertilizes. The fertilized eggs then embed in the pouch wall and become enveloped with tissues. The pouch acts like the womb of a female mammal, complete with a placental fluid that bathes the eggs, and provides nutrients and oxygen to the developing embryos while removing waste products. ...

Pregnancy lasts between two and four weeks, the length decreasing with increasing temperature. At the end of gestation the male goes into labour (usually at night), pumping and thrusting for hours to release his brood." (http://seahorse.fisheries.ubc.ca/biology5.html)

[Fishteacher73]

There are a few hemaphrodidic animal species out there that can self fertalize such as the armadillo lizard (Cordylus cataphractus) and a good deal of fish species that change sex depeding on the ratios in the shoal (Parrot fishes (Order Perciformes, Family scaridae) often have a dominant male in the school. When the male is removed, the dominant female will change sexes and become the dominant male of the school).

There are a few species that the male is the primary brood provider (Sea horses as you mentioned) but they are little more than baby sitters. The male emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) does much the same by caring for the egg while the female leaves to feed and returns 7-8 weeks later after the chick has hatched. While male care of the off-spring is rare, I do not think it would qualify as pregnancy. (If that was the question of the post, I really was not sure what the intent of it was, but oddities of the animal kingdom fascinate me).

[TeleMad]

Originally Posted by Fishteacher73

(If that was the question of the post, I really was not sure what the intent of it was...).

This might help:

"rhetorical question n (1843) : a question asked merely for effect with no answer expected" (Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary)

[Buffy]

All I know is, is that if guys got pregnant, there'd be a whole lot fewer unplanned pregnancies....

Cheers,
Buffy

[Fishteacher73]

Tele, theres no reason to be rude.
I simply saw the post and responded with ideas that I felt were relavant to the thread. Your reply was not. You seem to enjoy name calling and degrading others comments. I think that such behavior is best left in pre-school.

[TeleMad]

Originally Posted by Fishteacher73

Tele, theres no reason to be rude.
I simply saw the post and responded with ideas that I felt were relavant to the thread. Your reply was not. You seem to enjoy name calling and degrading others comments. I think that such behavior is best left in pre-school.

1) Don't get your panties all tied up in a wad. There are no insults in what I said.

2) If you have a problem with the way I post, the proper way to bring it up is using a private message, not posting your complaint in a thread. Moderators of any form should know this.

3) But since you see fit to point out here what you feel is an inappropriate action by me, let me return the favor, from a reply you made to me back on 02/03/2005.

Fishteach73: Its called the Drake Equation...For someone who acts as all knowing as you seem to act I would think you would know this. (http://www.hypography.com/sciencefor...&page=16&pp=10)

Geez, judging from your gross overreaction to my post here, if I had said something like that to you, you’d probably ask for me to banned.

Take a chill pill Fishteacher73.

[alxian]

human male pregnancy.. blasphemy!

got that out of my system. it would have to be parthenogenesis or nothing. i want a twin or two of myself or bust.

sure a woman may fall into madness and decide to copulate with me.. or god forbid a male traumatically trying it (the sea slugs).. he'd be soon dead anyway.

what i forsee is peeps writing more perfect versions of their own dna. where again a couple can contract a lab to do it too, but thats over complicating the whole thing.

even if this is to occur i'd prefer my perfect progeny to be birthed from a woman certainly unless of course i could do it.. but being out of it for a few months with some parasitic growth feeding off me or my significant other.. nah thanx, keep it. though i suppose being birthed from a tank of growth factor non-discript biomass for sustinance and gatorade isn't the most glamourous entrance one could make into the human race no matter how perfect your genome (unless of course you're the first to do it, afterwards its just a production line and more mouths to feed). .. ick or some large animal like a cow or elephant...