Offspring

This article is about a biological term. For the punk rock band, see The Offspring. For other uses, see Offspring (disambiguation).

A frog in frogspawn.

In biology, offspring is the product of reproduction, of a new organism produced by one or more parents.

Collective offspring may be known as a brood or progeny in a more general way. This can refer to a set of simultaneous offspring, such as the chicks hatched from one clutch of eggs, or to all the offspring, as with the honeybee.

Human offspring (descendants) are referred to as children (without reference to age, thus one can refer to a parent's "minor children" or "adult children" or "infant children" or "teenage children); male children are sons and female children are daughters. See kinship and descent. Offspring can occur after mating or after artificial insemination.

See also

• Bateman's principle
• Clutch size
• Donor offspring
• Infanticide (zoology)
• Litter
• Parental investment
• Parent-offspring conflict