Butterflies and Aliens
In the fictional "Alien" franchies the main creatures, nicknamed "xenomorphs" because of a throwaway line used one time and misinterpreted by everyone since then (but I'll use it anyway since they still have never been given any official name), are not actually one organism but two symbiotic organisms that depend on each otehr to reproduce.
The first form, the facehugger, carries alien eggs that it implants in humans. These eggs don't hatch into more facehuggers, however - instead they hatch into the larger aliens. It is from the queens of these larger aliens that eggs are laid that contain not aliens but facehuggers. In other words, the repductive act of each of the two species produces the other species rather than its own.
If that sounds, well, alien... it's not that far from reality for one type of real-world organism: The butterfly, and it's symbiotic partnet that caterpillar. When a caterpillar enters its cocoon it dies. No seriously, it dies. It's entire body, with the exception of a few little "disks" that eventually become wings, melts down into organic soup. This includes that heart, lungs and brain.
That's right, the brain dissolves as well. The center of the self. Now consider this: When a human dies, bacteria & fungus immediately begin consuming the body. So in this sense, the molecules of the cells don't stay dead for very long as they quickly get recycled into living things, albeit of several different species. Yet we don't consider the person to still be alive because when the brain goes the mind goes and what is consciousness otehr than the mind & brain? The "self" is gone within seven minutes of the last breath being taken and it does not get spread out amongst all those microboes that consume the cellular matter that remains.
So by that reasoning the butterfly organism is just a hyper-evolved detritivore that specifically feeds exclusively on the mortal remains of dead caterpillars. Yet it does not lay butterfly eggs. It lays caterpillar eggs. It doesn't reproduce itself - it reproduces the partner organism. That partner, in turn, literally dies in a coccoon - which could be seen as analogous to an egg - to provide the materials needs to produce a butterfly. Caterpillars don't lay caterpillar eggs, they become butterfly eggs.
In other words, the repductive act of each of the two species produces the other species rather than its own.
The first form, the facehugger, carries alien eggs that it implants in humans. These eggs don't hatch into more facehuggers, however - instead they hatch into the larger aliens. It is from the queens of these larger aliens that eggs are laid that contain not aliens but facehuggers. In other words, the repductive act of each of the two species produces the other species rather than its own.
If that sounds, well, alien... it's not that far from reality for one type of real-world organism: The butterfly, and it's symbiotic partnet that caterpillar. When a caterpillar enters its cocoon it dies. No seriously, it dies. It's entire body, with the exception of a few little "disks" that eventually become wings, melts down into organic soup. This includes that heart, lungs and brain.
That's right, the brain dissolves as well. The center of the self. Now consider this: When a human dies, bacteria & fungus immediately begin consuming the body. So in this sense, the molecules of the cells don't stay dead for very long as they quickly get recycled into living things, albeit of several different species. Yet we don't consider the person to still be alive because when the brain goes the mind goes and what is consciousness otehr than the mind & brain? The "self" is gone within seven minutes of the last breath being taken and it does not get spread out amongst all those microboes that consume the cellular matter that remains.
So by that reasoning the butterfly organism is just a hyper-evolved detritivore that specifically feeds exclusively on the mortal remains of dead caterpillars. Yet it does not lay butterfly eggs. It lays caterpillar eggs. It doesn't reproduce itself - it reproduces the partner organism. That partner, in turn, literally dies in a coccoon - which could be seen as analogous to an egg - to provide the materials needs to produce a butterfly. Caterpillars don't lay caterpillar eggs, they become butterfly eggs.
In other words, the repductive act of each of the two species produces the other species rather than its own.