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 Adélie penguins or bottlenose dolphins, and presents animal behaviors that challenge us to rethink our assumptions and prejudices. Featuring fabulous sex-fluid fishes and ant, wasp, and bee queens who can choose both how they want to have sex and the sex of their offspring, A Little Queer Natural History offers a larger lesson: that the diversity we see in our own species needs no justification and represents just a fraction of what exists in the natural world.

Author: Josh L. Davis
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 10/10/2024
Pages: 125
Weight: 0.74lbs
Size: 7.50h x 6.60w x 0.40d
ISBN: 9780226837031


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 08/05/2024
Foreword 08/14/2024

About the Author
Josh L. Davis is a science writer for the Natural History Museum, London, with a background in biology and conservation. His writing has been published in Mongabay, IFLScience, the Observer, the Guardian, and the Times.