INTERSEXUAL FEMALES AND INTERSEXUALITY IN HABROBRACON

¹ From the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole

Nine female intersexes are described and compared with the one intersexual form previously known in Habrobracon, the fertile mutant type gynoid, a weakly intersexual male.

These female intersexes proved sterile, having male heads and instincts and abortive ovaries. They are, in general, female posteriorly, while gynoid males have partially feminized heads but react like males.

Evidence suggests a dominant mutation in the sex-differentiating factoras a possible cause of this female intersexuality.

On the basis of comparison with these female intersexes, it is suggested that the structure of ovaries in triploid females represents a step toward intersexuality.

Antennal length of diploid males, both fused and wild type, although inter grading, is not regarded as due to intersexuality but to diploidy as such.