I'm watching Nature and they just mentioned it. Seems the ladies get fertilized elsewhere. If they both lay eggs they eject one from the nest as they only raise one chick at a time. But they can alternate which one gets to pass on their genes (discovered with genetic testing of the ejected eggs). It's a fascinating show. Now they are on to a male fish that the ladies all like because he raises all their eggs. He gets so many eggs that smaller male 'assistants' join the nest, getting to fertilize some of the eggs. Earlier they had a creepy nest of gregarious spiders (rare in spiders) that share caring for each other's egg sacks. Lots of material here for my world building.
Yeah, animals are fascinating. I think common cuckoos are total assholes, laying their eggs into other birds' nests, even mimicking the looks of the host bird's own eggs. Gee, even their chicks can be assholes as apparently scientists have observed the cuckoo chich eject other unhatched eggs from the nest if it hatches first. Like in terms of fauna? Was the fauna introduced by your settlers or evolved on their own on the planet?
I wonder... what do the females get out of their same-sex pairs? The gain must be pretty good for an animal to give up half of its potential offspring. Hmm... ETA: Found a pretty good article on the subject: Female Albatrosses Shack Up And, yes, animals are awesome. (I'm not studying biology for naught.)
In an alternate universe, where I'm good at math and science, I'm studying how to be a wildlife naturalist. Dammit, why couldn't it be in this universe? I love animals.
My story takes place on a planet humans have colonized but which had extensively evolved life before they arrived. I've found that exotic lifeforms are more interesting and make more sense for a world where life evolved separately than it did on Earth.
Eternal flames await these sinful albatrosses. Seriously though, how are we supposed to justify bigotry now?
