six years before changing sex since all California sheephead are born female. Bluehead wrasses begin life as males or females, but females can change sex and function as males. Young females and males start with a dull initial-phase coloration before progressing into a brilliant terminal-phase coloration, which has a change in intensity of color, stripes, and bars. Terminal-phase coloration occurs when males become large enough to defend territory. Initial-phase males have larger testes than larger, terminal phase males, which enables the initial-phase males to produce a large amount of sperm. This strategy allows these males to compete with the larger territorial male. Botryllus schlosseri, a colonial tunicate, is a protogynous hermaphrodite. In a colony, eggs are released about two days before the peak of sperm emission. Although self-fertilization is avoided and cross-fertilization favored by this strategy, self-fertilization is still possible. Self-fertilized eggs develop with a substantially higher frequency of anomalies during cleavage than cross-fertilized eggs (23% vs. 1.6%). Also a significantly lower percentage of larvae derived from self-fertilized eggs metamorphose, and the growth of the colonies derived from their metamorphosis is significantly lower. These findings suggest that self-fertilization gives rise to inbreeding depression associated with developmental deficits that are likely caused by expression of deleterious recessive mutations. Other examples of protogynous organisms include: In the following fish families: Serranidae (groupers), Sparidae (porgies), Synbranchidae (swamp eels), Labridae (wrasses), Scaridae (parrotfishes), Pomacanthidae (angelfishes), Gobiidae (gobies), Lethrinidae (emperors), and possibly others. The intertidal isopod Gnorimosphaeroma oregonense. Protogyny sometimes occurs in the frog Rana temporaria, where older females will sometimes switch to being males. Ultimate causes The ultimate cause of a biological event determines how the event makes organisms better adapted to their environment, and thus why evolution by natural selection has produced that event. While a large number of ultimate causes of hermaphroditism have been proposed, the two causes most relevant to sequential hermaphroditism are the size-advantage model and protection against inbreeding. Size-advantage model The size-advantage model states that individuals of a given sex reproduce more effectively if they are a certain size or age. To create selection for sequential hermaphroditism, small individuals must have higher reproductive fitness as one sex and larger individuals must have higher reproductive fitness as the opposite sex. For example, eggs are larger than sperm, thus larger individuals are able to make more eggs, so individuals could maximize their reproductive potential by beginning life as male and then