Book overview
Beautifully illustrated and scientifically informed, a celebration of the astonishing diversity of sexual behavior and biology found in nature.
From a pair of male swans raising young to splitgill mushrooms with over 23,000 mating types, sex in the natural world is wonderfully diverse. Josh L. Davis considers how, for many different organisms--animals, plants, and fungi included--sexual reproduction and sex determination rely on a surprisingly complex interaction among genes, hormones, environment, and chance. As Davis introduces us to fascinating biological concepts like parthenogenesis (virgin birth), monoecious plants (individuals with separate male and female flowers), and sex-reversed genitals, we see turtle hatchlings whose sex is determined by egg temperature; butterflies that embody male and female biological tissue in the same organism; and a tomato that can reproduce three different ways at the same time. Davis also reveals animal and plant behaviors in nature that researchers have historically covered up or explained away, like queer sex among Ad
From a pair of male swans raising young to splitgill mushrooms with over 23,000 mating types, sex in the natural world is wonderfully diverse. Josh L. Davis considers how, for many different organisms--animals, plants, and fungi included--sexual reproduction and sex determination rely on a surprisingly complex interaction among genes, hormones, environment, and chance. As Davis introduces us to fascinating biological concepts like parthenogenesis (virgin birth), monoecious plants (individuals with separate male and female flowers), and sex-reversed genitals, we see turtle hatchlings whose sex is determined by egg temperature; butterflies that embody male and female biological tissue in the same organism; and a tomato that can reproduce three different ways at the same time. Davis also reveals animal and plant behaviors in nature that researchers have historically covered up or explained away, like queer sex among Ad