Sex Determination
Sex differences refer to the numerous qualities and characteristics that vary between the sexes. There are different sexes in most animals, as well as some insects, and even plants. In humans, an individual’s sex is determined by their chromosomes. Humans are born with 46 chromosomes in 26 pairs. On the 23rd pair, the chromosomes are known as either X or Y chromosomes. If someone is born with two X chromosomes, they are female. If there is one X and one Y in the pair, then they are male. These are the most common outcomes; however, in rare cases, there can be other variants. One in every thousand humans will be born with only one sex chromosome, and at a similar rate, some individuals are born with three sex chromosomes (Aydin et al. 2019). Additionally, some people are born with some cells containing an XY pair, while other cells contain XX; this is known as intersex. Hormonal...
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Fleury, C. (2022). Sex Differences. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55065-7_447
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