Wild Sex: The Science Behind Mating in the Animal Kingdom in Science and Inquiry

Sep 21, 2019 Jim rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science, 1audio, 2non-fiction

I was raised on a farm where I learned about sex way before puberty & now have grandkids, so what more is there for me learn about sex? Plenty! Most everything does it, but how & for what environmental advantage(s) is fascinating. As Bondar correctly points out, we have a fairly unique point of view of sex. We're one of the few species that do it for fun, but we're not the only species that does, thus a chapter devoted to masturbation.

I wish I could find the table of contents to post here becaus I was raised on a farm where I learned about sex way before puberty & now have grandkids, so what more is there for me learn about sex? Plenty! Most everything does it, but how & for what environmental advantage(s) is fascinating. As Bondar correctly points out, we have a fairly unique point of view of sex. We're one of the few species that do it for fun, but we're not the only species that does, thus a chapter devoted to masturbation.

I wish I could find the table of contents to post here because that would give a great idea of all the different angles from which she looked at it. There are chapters on homosexuality, hermaphrodites, dad's raising broods, moms eating dads, moms & dads working together to raise youngsters that might not belong to either & more. Best of all, she relates the latest hypotheses on why they evolved this way.

Sex is generally an antagonistic dance between sexes. Generally, the female has the most resources invested in any offspring, so she wants to make sure they go to the very best male. Males have to compete with each other & either please or rape the female to spread their seed. Pleasing can mean sacrificing themselves as a meal to breaking off their equipment in the female to cut down on their competition's access to her eggs. Sometimes it means dueling with another of their species to see who will be which sex. (That's usually done in hermaphrodites like snails with lots of stabbing.) It's horrific, but it's also the means of insuring the fittest make the best use of limited resources.

Resource scarcity: food, habitat, time, & health. It's a recurring theme. The difference in a good gift & a fake one can mean the difference in life or death for a brood. Some systems are so parsimonious that the female eating male's seed &/or sexual parts make the difference.

Bondar took me on an incredible journey through the animal kingdom & it was fascinating all the way. The book was well narrated, too. I do have a few nitpicks, though. She always used common names followed by Latin names. That's fine when there might be confusion in the common names or within the same species. Other times, it was just irritating. I don't want to know them all.

She also used a biologically specific vocabulary & that can be a bit daunting. She was very good at explaining terms within the text, but if you're not conversant in them (I'm not!) they can get a bit bewildering at times. I'm not knocking her use of them, even though I had to pause to think about them sometimes. She taught me a lot & stretched my mind some, but just be aware of this tendency, especially if you don't like it.

The book was a bit longer than I really wanted & yet I could tell she had plenty more to say. A few times I wish she had gone into more detail. I have a feeling she could have written a book about each chapter. Instead, we get a very brief overview with the most salient points. It's a bigger subject than I realized & I think she did a great job of boiling it down to show the major themes. Highly recommended. ...more

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