Headless Males Make Great Lovers: And Other Unusual Natural Histories.HEADLESS MALES MAKE GREAT LOVERS: And Other Unusual Natural Histories MARTY CRUMP Insects, as Crump demonstrates, can lead weird lives. For instance, the male preying mantis typically sneaks up on a female to mate, gets his head chewed off, and yet continues to Copulate cop·u·late v. To engage in coitus or sexual intercourse. . Crump details other bizarre denizens of the animal kingdom, from hermaphroditic her·maph·ro·dite n. 1. An animal or plant exhibiting hermaphroditism. 2. Something that is a combination of disparate or contradictory elements. slugs to pregnant male seahorses and blood sucking bats. In short, whimsical essays, Crump, a professor of biological sciences at Northern Arizona University Northern Arizona University (NAU) is a public university in Flagstaff, Arizona in the United States. As of Fall 2007, the university has 21,352 students, 13,989 of these are situated in the main Flagstaff campus<ref name="Enrollment" />. , provides a broad survey of unusual behaviors. For example, male deep-sea anglerfish anglerfish Any of about 210 species of marine fishes (order Lophiiformes) named for their method of “fishing” for prey. The foremost spine of the dorsal fin is located on the head and is modified into a “fishing rod” tipped with a fleshy attach themselves to their mates, parasite-style, for life, and horned lizards squirt blood from their eyes to ward off attackers. Other lizards and starfish sacrifice parts of their bodies to escape predators--and then grow back those parts. Throughout the book, Crumb sprinkles anecdotes about human behavior, including our occasionally strange dietary selections, such as other animals' milk, and the idea that people release and respond to pheromones pheromones, any of a variety of substances, secreted by many animal species, that alter the behavior of individuals of the same species. Sex attractant pheromones, secreted by a male or female to attract the opposite sex, are widespread among insects. . Univ. Chicago Press, 2007, 199 p., b&w illus., paperback, $14.00. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion