Female

Female (♀) is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces ova (egg cells). The ova are defined as the larger gamete in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon is produced by the male. A female individual cannot reproduce sexually without access to the gametes of a male (an exception is parthenogenesis). Some organisms can reproduce both sexually and asexually. There is no single genetic mechanism behind sex differences in different species and the existence of two sexes seems to have evolved multiple times independently in different evolutionary lineages. Other than the defining difference in the type of gamete produced, differences between males and females in one lineage cannot always be predicted by differences in another. The concept is not limited to animal; egg cells are produced by chytrid, diatom, water mold and land plants, among others. In land plants, female and male designate not only the egg-...