Man, the news seems to be Animals After Dark the last couple of days. As a sex-obsessed biologist, I can’t exactly complain. Here are some neat stories:
- You are what you eat, and you love whoever eats the same way. At least, if you’re a fruit fly. Gut bacteria in flies that are more common on different diets change the way the fly smells, and flies are more attracted to flies that smell like them.
- Male wasp spiders only get one chance at love, since females eat them after mating. How romantic. It used to be believed that males preferred larger, more fertile females, but it looks like what male spiders really dig are virgins. I guess it’s not a bad strategy when the first male to mate with a female is most successful. Well, as long as he remembers to snap off his genital inside of her to form a chastity belt. (What, did I make some of you uncomfortable? Look, I had to stare at a scary spider to read that article for you, so shush)
- If you thought finding a partner to dance with was awkward, try being a black truffle. The two sexes of these fungi grow separately in different trees, relying on insects and animals to bring them together. Unlike humans, who rely on booze.
- Move over, Mary. A female boa constrictor has given virgin birth twenty two baby snakes. Parthenogenesis – the development of an embryo without fertilization from a male – has been documented in reptiles before, but this case is unique. You’re probably familiar with how sex is determined in mammals – XX are female, XY are male. It many reptiles and birds, the homogametic (same sex chromosome) sex is reversed – ZZ are male, ZW are female. The surprising thing is that all of the virgin offspring were WW, which was previously thought to be nonviable. They are all essentially half clones of their mother, resulting in a duplication of just half of her genome. That, or God is sending an interesting message with his species choice for the second coming.