In reptiles, gender can be determined in some unusual ways

For humans, it may seem obvious that gender is controlled by genetics.  For other animals, it’s not always the case. Research shows that in sea turtles and crocodilians, males and females are genetically identical.  Instead of a difference in chromosomes in boys and girls, the temperature at which eggs develop are involved in determining the gender of these young reptiles. I volunteered for five months on Equatorial Guinea collecting sea turtle nest data.  One of the data points we collected was the temperature of different nests. …