• Question: Why don't men have wombs?

    Asked by caitlingriffin1994 to Christina, Colin, Jess, Samaneh, Steve on 23 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Christina Pagel

      Christina Pagel answered on 23 Jun 2013:


      Most species have evolved to separate out their sex functions -so some of them will make eggs and some of them make sperm that fertilise the eggs. In mammals, the females who make the eggs also carry the embryos until they’re ready to be born in their wombs… Once you specialise that way, the male and female animals tend to evolve to have other differences too (in colour, size etc)… I don’t know why sex separation started evolving and some animals (like earthworms) are hermaphrodites – that means they can be both the male and female!

      very occasionally people can be born that have both male and female organs…

Comments