Thread by @baileys

So apparently Jordan Peterson has a section in his book about lobster social behavior. I’ve never written a long twitter thread before but YOU COME INTO ~*MY*~ HOUSE? Let’s talk marine invertebrate social behavior:

During mating season, certain beaches on the east coast of North America become horseshoe crab orgies in which each female is accompanied by at least one male (more likely two or more) fertilizing her eggs as she lays them.

The strongest, largest, youngest males hold onto the female’s carapace directly. Sometimes additional males hold onto those males. “Sneaker” males approach more subtly, from the side. All of these are viable reproductive strategies.

(Until reaching sexual maturity, horseshoe crabs tend to ignore each other unless stealing one another’s food.)

How about gastropods? Sea hares are hermaphrodites and also lay their eggs orgy-style with each individual simultaneously acting as male and female in multiple couplings. If only two are available, they take turns being “male” and “female.”

(I don’t know how they divide up the task of representing “chaos” and “order”)

The limpet Crepidula fornicata got its name because they’re often observed in piles, mating. They’re sequential hermaphrodites, meaning an individual is only one sex at a time but changes over the course of its life.

Sequential hermaphroditism is relatively common among marine invertebrates, since sperm is cheap and can be easily produced while you’re still small, but eggs are costlier and easier to make once you’ve built up body mass.

How about our earliest-diverging relative, the ctenophore aka comb jelly? Most are hermaphrodites and often self-fertilize.

They can cross-fertilize and may even communicate to coordinate spawning.

In this context, jellyfish seem positively heteronormative: in many species (including my fave, Cassiopea) there appear to be separate sexes, and females demonstrate a degree of parental care by brooding early embryos and larvae.

However, asexual reproduction is also a vital part of maintaining jellyfish populations.

Anyway, if you’re going to try to use marine invertebrate behavior as an example of how hierarchical, patriarchal social order is “natural,” I’m not buying it.

If you’re using lobster behavior to justify existing human social hierarchies, you’re less interested in lobster behavior than you are in maintaining those social hierarchies.