Author: Lucinda Aulsebrook, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Marine Ecology and Environmental Change Lab, James Cook University

If you’ve ever had a spiny leaf insect as a pet, or you’re considering getting one, hopefully someone has warned you about this: if you put one in your enclosure, you might come back some time later to find two. How? These animals are among a handful of species that can choose to reproduce sexually or asexually. In other words, they can reproduce with a partner or totally on their own. This is known as facultative sex. So why does it exist and why can’t humans do it? What’s the difference between sexual and asexual reproduction? In sexual reproduction, offspring…