#asexual reproduction is still of a hell of a valid strategy though

[horizonandstar]

I'm pretty sure some data entries you get from scanning suggest that the life in 4546b can, in fact, self fertilize and possess both male and female parts.

My guess is it's more common for Leviathans to self fertilize since their numbers, as apex predators, would need to stay fairly low and thus have small clutches along with tending towards being quite territorial about their claimed hunting grounds, but they could also mate as normal if they wanted.

yeah! according to the wiki, a majority of fauna are simultaneous hermaphrodites, and i didnt make celestial leviathans an exception to this. i wouldnt be surprised if they were capable of being autogamous but i expect that it wouldnt be as common as sexual reproduction

but yeah, i expect sexual reproduction >>> autogamy. kind of the whole point is to swap genes and get a good amount of genetic diversity. if too many generations self-fertilize, then the offspring would have more homozygous genes

lets assume this gene is Aa, so Aa x Aa = 25% AA, 50% Aa, 25% aa

and if the offspring turns out to have AA or aa for this gene, then any further offspring gotten from self-fertilizing would have the exact same copy because theres really no other variation from that point forth. do that to enough genes, and that becomes a problem with the low genetic diversity

so yeah! asexual reproduction is still on the table, just that i imagine sexual reproduction would be the more common of the 2, even if the leviathans are territorial