Wild sex!

[espritch]

Ok. Now that I have your attention D), let me be a little more specific: wild animal sex. Or, to be even more, specific: “Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation” by Olivia Judson. I just finished it and it’s excellent. The book is presented as a sex advice column for the animal kingdom. Its really a dissertation on the remarkable variety of sexual strategies in the natural world and an attempt to explain why these various strategies evolved. Each section starts with a “letter” from one animal or another posing questions or concerns about the sexual proclivities of their species. A typical example:

Dear Dr. Tatiana,

My boyfriend is the handsomest golden potto I ever saw. He’s got beautiful golden fur on his back, creamy white fur on his belly, he smells delicious, and he has ever such dainty hands and feet. There’s just one thing. Please, Dr. Tatiana, why is his penis covered in enormous spines?

Spooked in Gabon

In addition to questions such as why a golden potto’s member is spiny, the book addresses a wide range of subjects such as why the budding ornithologists needs to be careful about what color band he uses to mark male birds lest he affect their reproductive success, why the 400 lb gorilla has a paltry two inch penis while the relatively small Argentine lake duck wields a quite respectable 8 inches (I didn’t even know ducks had penises), and, of course, why no male should ever envy the banana slug:

Banana slug penises are gigantic and complex. During sex, the penis often gets stuck. At the end of sex, therefore, the slug or its partner gnaws off the offending phallus.

Yeeowch!

The book introduces us to male red back spiders who battle for the right to be eaten by their mates, and male praying mantises who’s mating is a very delicate dance wherein they try to avoid getting eaten by theirs – a task made all the more difficult when curious homo sapiens meddle in the process:

But the European praying mantis is one the few species that has been watched in both the laboratory and the wild – and cannibalism is equally common in both places. The difference is that in the laboratory sex takes several hours longer, apparently because the male is too terrified to dismount ( Normally, when the male is done, he drops into the undergrowth, putting himself out of reach. Laboratories usually don’t feature undergrowth, and the male stays where he is, as if pondering his predicament.)

The book not only presents a plethora of such interesting tidbits, but presents them within the context of bigger questions, such as why a girl might want to eat her mate in the first place, why true monogamy is so rare “that it is one of the most deviant behaviors in biology”, and why sex is a useful evolutionary development in the first place.

It’s a real pleasure to read a well written book on science that manages to mix theory, fascinating facts, and more than a touch of wry humor. I highly recommend it.