How can a one-gender humanoid species reproduce quickly?
Theoretical scenario question I came up with. Unrelated to anything, just a weird idea.
A humanoid species has evolved to appear to humans to be a human female. In fact they have bat-like wings which fold up on their back (which they can use to fly) and a medium-length scaled tail barbed with a strong toxin. It attracts human males, gets them on their own, then kills them using their tails. It needs to eat one fully-grown human male approximately once every two days to survive.
Problem: The race consists solely of females, and they can't be fertilised by human males. Even if they could, pregnancy in a human way would probably put off many males for far too long. And the child either needs to be born old enough to attract males to eat or the mother has to supply extra food, which would be very difficult likely as not.
How can they reproduce?
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1 answer
I'd correct the "one every two days" flaw, it is implausible: or change it to some component of the body: one brain, one heart whatever.
The solution to your problem is socialism within the species. They care for each other when pregnant, for as long as it takes, and care for their young together, until they are mature. You can shorten the pregnancy to something like ten weeks (a large dog is 9 or 10 weeks).
To prevent cloning; have the females mate: In humans, a female has two X chromosomes, typically one from their father and one from their mother. Same deal, two women, each with two X chromosomes, could only produce a female, with one X from one woman, and another X from the other. How they mate is up to you, as long as they can mix DNA. Offhand I'd make them (unlike humans) able to extract partner DNA from saliva; so if they wish they can become pregnant by simple kissing; or put a biological opening under their tongue that can produce a (molecule sized) egg, or accept one.
The socialism aspect: While one female is pregnant, others bring her food (male brains or whatever). When she has a child, they all care for it equally. Make their social group something like 13 of them; like a witch's coven, that take turns being pregnant, working in childcare, etc. Traveling to foreign cities, if need be they can be guests of a local coven, providing food in exchange for friendly and understanding shelter (along with alibis and reinforcements as needed).
Being brutal against humans does not preclude them being loving and generous, even self-sacrificing, to their own kind.
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