ANSWERS: 3
  • I assume you mean more than two sexes in any one species. Historically genders [masculine, feminine and neuter] are defined differently than the sexes [male and female]. There are some species wherein one member may change from female to male or v.v. ... but I am unaware of any plant or animal that has something classified as a third sex. There are of course many living things that are neither male nor female and exhibit asexual reproduction. Anyway, you would have to agree on definitions for "sex" and/or "gender" to get everybody to agree on an answer, but if I understand the question right, I do not believe any have been identified.
  • I'm not exactly sure you would call it a "gender" in the traditional male/female sense, but various species of fungus will have 4 or more "genders" or "sexes". Fungus-- mushrooms-- can generally reproduce both asexually and sexually. During sexual reproduction, the cells can enter a diploid state where each reproductive cell effectively has two entire sets of chromosomes, each set of which can either be "male" or "female". As a result, there are effectively 16 combinations of "sexes" that can be involved in reproduction. Not all are necessarily viable in all situations. The whole story is actually considerably more complex. The whole fungus family has an incredibly complex set of reproductive behaviors.
  • There are also hermaphrodites. These are organism that are both male and female. Earth worms are like this. Each one produces both sperm and eggs. As far as I know, they are not able to fertilize themselves however. When two worms that interested in reproducing meet, then they release their sperm thus fertilizing each other.

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