sexual dimorphism

Of course not, but each species has dimorphism (or lack thereof) that is apparently beneficial to that specific species' niche and evolutionary development along with sexual selection in many cases.

Hope that makes sense

I am still confused about sexual dimorphism.

I really cannot fathom how different species (no matter what the enviornment is) produces differences in the sexes. While i understand the different roles of the sexes, I do not understand why some female species are bigger.

Do you mean you don't understand how the female and male of the same species can look so different? Because the answer to that is gender related genes (from the chromosome only the males get, which causes them to be male instead of female - this is determined at conception) and various hormone influences in the growing/adult animal.

Also, there is a certain amount of difference in the reproductive strategies of male and female - sometimes they even conflict, like in the case of the insect (I can't recall its name right now - old age!) species in which the male literally stabs the female's abdomen with his sperm depositor, wounding her, sometimes fatally, in order to have the best chance of his sperm being the first and only. Also with male lions which kill the cubs of a pride if they chase away the old lion - this is against the interests of the females, whose genetic successors are lost, and forces them to put energy into having more cubs.

Rats i just lost a long answer.

Basically it was this. With deep sea fish, food is very scarce. Temp is near freezing, total darkness. the fish are small with weak watery muscles,; they dont move around much, they live as ambush predators. A single meal can last for many months, and it probably will have to.

In some types the males exist only as tiny (maybe 1% the saie of the ffemale) parasites permanently fused to the female.

If they were the same size as the female, then half of the very limited food supply would go to non egg laying individuals, and too, energy that is in short supply might be used looking for a mate.

So! twice as many egg layers as if they were not bigger than the male.

but like I said before, every creature has its own story, its own set of circumstances.

In your initial post, you explained only one so I was referring to that one.

I believe all the big cats (excluding the lion) do not apply to this concept yet the female is smaller.

This also applies to all bear species.

Why wouldn't this concept apply to them?

No, I understand how they look different.








I know why male lions kill but the other poster said that the reason for the big group is to protect their young which doesn't apply with female lions

I never said "always" but generally being bigger is better.

thanks for your post.

If this method entails survival, why wouldn't all deep water fish have this same method (big female, little male)?