Battle of the Sexes in the Animal World

Battle of the Sexes in the Animal World

Author: John Sparks

Publisher:

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13:

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Linked to a BBC1 television series, this is an account of sexual reproduction in the animal world, culminating in the question of why there should be sex in the first place - the ultimate driving force of evolution, but also selfish, aggressive, competitive, and sometimes fatal. The meeting of mates, the sexual act, and the consequences of producing offspring, forge an alliance between males and females that is rife with tension and distrust. The two sexes tactically play games with each other to get the best return from mating: at stake is the greatest reward for any animal on earth - the generation and survival of their progeny. The drive to succeed in this gives rise to a violent, beautiful and spectacular show of animal behaviour, captured here through the book's colour photographs.


Odd Couples

Odd Couples

Author: Daphne J. Fairbairn

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2015-08-25

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 0691169780

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The remarkable and unique ways that male and female animals play out gender roles in nature While we joke that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, our gender differences can't compare to those of many other animals. For instance, the male garden spider spontaneously dies after mating with a female more than fifty times his size. And male blanket octopuses employ a copulatory arm longer than their own bodies to mate with females that outweigh them by four orders of magnitude. Why do these gender gulfs exist? Introducing readers to important discoveries in animal behavior and evolution, Odd Couples explores some of the most extraordinary sexual differences in the animal world. Daphne Fairbairn uncovers the unique and bizarre characteristics of these remarkable species and the special strategies they use to maximize reproductive success. Fairbairn also considers humans and explains that although we are keenly aware of our own sexual differences, they are unexceptional within the vast animal world. Looking at some of the most amazing creatures on the planet, Odd Couples sheds astonishing light on what it means to be male or female in the animal kingdom.


Battle of the Sexes

Battle of the Sexes

Author: John Sparks

Publisher:

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13:

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"This book is published to accompany the television series 'Battle of the Sexes,' broadcast on the Discovery Channel and produced by the BBC Natural History Unit, Bristol, England"--T.p. vers


How to Love Animals

How to Love Animals

Author: Henry Mance

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2021-07-13

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 1984879669

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A personal journey into our evolving relationships with animals, and a thought-provoking look at how those bonds are being challenged and reformed across disciplines We love animals, but does that make the animals' lives any happier? With factory farms, climate change and deforestation, this might be the worst time in history to be an animal. If we took animals' experiences seriously, how could we eat, think and live differently? How to Love Animals is a lively and important portrait of our evolving relationship with animals, and how we can share our planet fairly. Mance works in a slaughterhouse and on a pig farm to explore the reality of eating meat and dairy. He explores our dilemmas over hunting wild animals, over-fishing the seas, visiting zoos and saving wild spaces. What might happen if we extended the love we show to our pets to other sentient beings? In an age of extinction and pandemics, our relationship with animals has become unsustainable. Mance argues that there has never been a better time to become vegetarian or vegan, and that the conservation movement can flourish, if people in wealthy countries shrink their footprint. Mance seeks answers from chefs, farmers, activists, philosophers, politicians and tech visionaries who are redefining how we think about animals. Inspired by the author's young daughters, his book is a story of discovery and hope that outlines how we can find a balance with animals that fits with our basic love for them.


Wild Sex

Wild Sex

Author: Carin Bondar

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2016-08-02

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1681772019

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Birds do it, bees do it — every member of the animal kingdom does it, from fruit flies to blue whales. But if you think humans have a tough time dating, try having to do it while being hunted down by predators, against a backdrop of unpredictable and life-threatening conditions. The animal kingdom is a wild place – and it’s got mating habits to match. The sex lives of our animal cousins are fiendishly difficult, infinitely varied, often incredibly violent — and absolutely fascinating.In Wild Sex, Dr. Carin Bondar takes readers on an enthralling tour of the animal kingdom as she explores the diverse world of sex in the wild. She looks at the evolution of sexual organs (and how they’ve shaped social hierarchies), tactics of seduction, and the mechanics of sex. She investigates a wide range of topics, from whether animals experience pleasure from sex to what happens when females hold the reproductive power. Along the way, she encounters razor-sharp penises, murderous carnal cannibals, and spontaneous chemical warfare in an epic battle between the sexes.The resulting book is titillating, exhilarating, amusing, petrifying, alluring — and absolutely guaranteed to make you think about sex in a whole new way.


All the Way Home

All the Way Home

Author: Bookey Peek

Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa

Published: 2012-10-09

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 0143027468

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You're crazy ... She'll take over and shove us out. I can just see this place in winter: no carpets, acres of wet newspaper underfoot, family huddled under blankets while the pig hogs the fire.' Richard and Bookey Peek hadn't planned on a warthog, any more than one would plan a tidal wave, a tornado or triplets, but on Stone Hills game sanctuary, natural disasters have a way of happening when you least expect them. Through Zimbabwe's darkest hours, Stone Hills has become a world in itself, a place where you might share your shower with an owl or your bed with a baby squirrel. Take a fresh look at the hospitality game with a couple whose crocodiles are named after unpopular guests. And follow the barefoot young David and his playmate, the warthog Poombi, as she relinquishes her place on the sofa to return to the wild - much to her indignation. Engaging and delightfully readable, this is a testament to one family's passion for Africa's wildlife and their conviction that nothing can change the essential nature of the land and its people. All the Way Home is the exhilarating and intensely moving story of a fiercely protected piece of Africa in the heart of the majestic Matobo Hills.


Bitch

Bitch

Author: Lucy Cooke

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2022-06-14

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 1541674901

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A fierce, funny, and revolutionary look at the queens of the animal kingdom Studying zoology made Lucy Cooke feel like a sad freak. Not because she loved spiders or would root around in animal feces: all her friends shared the same curious kinks. The problem was her sex. Being female meant she was, by nature, a loser. Since Charles Darwin, evolutionary biologists have been convinced that the males of the animal kingdom are the interesting ones—dominating and promiscuous, while females are dull, passive, and devoted. In Bitch, Cooke tells a new story. Whether investigating same-sex female albatross couples that raise chicks, murderous mother meerkats, or the titanic battle of the sexes waged by ducks, Cooke shows us a new evolutionary biology, one where females can be as dynamic as any male. This isn‘t your grandfather’s evolutionary biology. It’s more inclusive, truer to life, and, simply, more fun.


The War of the Sexes

The War of the Sexes

Author: Paul Seabright

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2013-10-13

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0691159726

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Men and women have long sought different things. The result? Seemingly inevitable conflict. Yet we belong to the most cooperative species on the planet. Isn't there a way we can use this capacity to achieve greater harmony and equality between the sexes? In "The War of the Sexes", Paul Seabright draws on biology, sociology, anthropology, and economics to argue that there is -- but first we must understand how the tension between conflict and cooperation developed in our remote evolutionary past, how it shaped the modern world, and how it still holds us back, both at home and at work. -- From publisher's description.


Unsettling Science and Religion

Unsettling Science and Religion

Author: Lisa Stenmark

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2018-05-24

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1498556426

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This book borrows from the intellectual labor of queer theory in order to unsettle—or “queer”—the discourses of “religion” and “science,” and, by extension, the “science and religion discourse.” Drawing intellectual and social cues from works by influential theorists such as Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Eve Sedgwick, chapters in this volume converge on at least three common features of queer theory. First, queer theory challenges givens that on occasion still undergird religiously and scientifically informed ways of thinking. Second, it takes embodiment seriously. Third, this engagement inevitably generates new pathways for thinking about how religious and scientific “truths” matter. These three features ultimately lend support to critical investigations into the meanings of “science” and “religion,” and the relationships between the two.