On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page male valentines day basket from the article title. This article is about the male sex.

For the capital of Maldives, see Malé. It also stands for the planet Mars and is the alchemical symbol for iron. A male organism cannot reproduce sexually without access to at least one ovum from a female, but some organisms can reproduce both sexually and asexually. In humans, the word male can also be used to refer to gender in the social sense of gender role or gender identity. The existence of separate sexes has evolved independently at different times and in different lineages, an example of convergent evolution. The evolution of anisogamy led to the evolution of male and female function.

The symbol is identical to the planetary symbol of Mars. It was first used to denote sex by Carl Linnaeus in 1751. The symbol is sometimes seen as a stylized representation of the shield and spear of the Roman god Mars. In addition to its meaning in the context of biology, male can also refer to gender or a shape of connectors. Males can coexist with hermaphrodites, a sexual system called androdioecy. They can also coexist with females and hermaphrodites, a sexual system called trioecy.