Talk:Bidder's organ

First para

The first paragraph should describe the function in nature of Bidder's organ.

1. Is it a rudimentary ovary with germ cells?
2. If the frog's testes are removed (castrated) do the gonadotropins rise?
3. Does this stimulate Bidder's organ to become a completely normal ovary that makes estrogen and other female hormones?
4. That even makes eggs? Is such a frog now a fertile female?
5. What is the putative function in nature?
6. Can it become functional under any natural circumstances?
7. Some fish can change sex in certain natural circumstances. In some reptiles I think a difference in incubation temperature determines which gonads (male or female) develop? Does a similar phenomenon happen in these frogs?
8. Do all frog species have this? Any other amphibians?

Don't keep us in suspense! Tell us more! Inquiring minds want to know! alteripse 03:10, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Bisexual

The article claims:

It therefore becomes a fully sexually functional female, which leads some zoologists to conclude that toads are actually bisexual and paedomorphic

and erroneously links to bisexual, which is was a disambiguation page.

However I can't fix the link because this doesn't seem to fit any of the three meanings of bisexual from Bisexual (disambiguation): bisexuality (sexual orientation), botany (not a plant), or biology (a species which has two different sexes, such as humans).

Perhaps this is hermaphroditism, or something else? I'm not a biologist. Please fix the word and link. I've removed the link in the mean time. OliverL 10:09, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Correction needed

... the Bidder's organ enlarges and produces viable oocytes, ... It therefore becomes a fully sexually functional female, ... By grammatical rules, the pronoun "It" stands for the Bidder's organ, not the toad that the sentence is intended for. An organ cannot becomes a fully sexually functional female. --Mirrordor 18:59, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Corrections made

The previous text included a rather fanciful misinterpretation of the sources, claiming that males could grow uteri and oviducts and gain full sexual function as females. The citations state the opposite. The most recent paper I could find that made the full-function claim is from the 1920s (http://www.eje-online.org/content/13/1/24.full.pdf+html), although it was repeated in David O. Norris's Vertebrate Endocrinology in 2007. Corrected these problems and dropped a non sequitur mention of paedomorphosis (not in cited sources, or any I could find). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.227.56.30 (talk) 20:43, 18 September 2016 (UTC)