Question

Which of the following organisms produce sperm without involving meiosis?
A) Sand fly and fruit fly
B) House fly and grasshopper
C) Honey bee and ant
D) Zebrafish and frog

Answer 1

Hint: One is an insect of the family Apidae and the other is an insect of family Formicidae. Apis mellifera is a scientific name of one of the insects.

Complete answer:
- In sexually reproducing species used to produce gametes, such as sperm or egg cells, meiosis is a special form of cell division of germ cells.
- It requires two division rounds that inevitably result in four cells with just one copy of each paternal and maternal chromosome.
- In addition, genetic material from the paternal and maternal copies of each chromosome is crossed over before the separation, producing new code variations on each chromosome.
- Later, through fertilisation, the haploid cells formed from a male and female by meiosis can combine to form a cell, the zygote, with two copies of each chromosome.

Now, let us find the solution from the options-
The sperms are produced without requiring meiosis in honeybee and ant. The sex of these cases is determined by an organism's ploidy. The female is diploid in this manner and is created from fertilised eggs. Whereas the male is haploid and mitosis (equational division) and not meiosis (reductional division) produces sperm production.

Thus, the correct answer is option (C) Honey bee and ant.

Note: Haplodiploidy is a method of sex-determination in which males are haploid and produce from unfertilized eggs, whereas females are diploid whereas produce from fertilised eggs. Haplodiploidy is often referred to as arrhenotoky. In all members of the Hymenoptera (bees, ants, and wasps) insect orders, haplodiploidy specifies the sex.