Nature's Nether Regions: What the Sex Lives of Bugs, Birds and Beasts Tell Us About Evolution, Biodioversity and Ourselves

(Paperback)

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Description

What's the easiest way to tell species apart Check their genitals. Researching private parts was long considered taboo, but scientists are now beginning to understand that the wild diversity of sex organs across species can tell us a lot about evolution. Nature's Nether Regions joyfully demonstrates that the more we learn about the multiform private parts of animals, the more we understand our own unique place in the great diversity of life.

Reviews

Schilthuizen whizzesbetween geographies and species, learning from apes, slugs, spiders.In the process he invites us on all kinds of interesting adventures, from finding ancient beetle genitals trapped in amber to examining barnacles depositing their sperm with eight-foot-long appendages.... This is a book about heterosexual sex between animals, but Schilthuizen hasn't closed the case on other kinds of sex driving animal evolution, too. Ever excited, ever open-minded, he pushes towards new frontiers.
--Tess Taylor, Barnes and Nobles Review

From the very first page, Menno Schilthuizen makes us both laugh and think about the bewildering genital variation in the animal kingdom. We laugh at the outrageous shapes these organs take, and think about the central issue of this book: how genital anatomy advances male and female procreation. An exhilarating and most informative read!
Frans de Waal, author of The Bonobo and the Atheist

A remarkable book... succeeds in finding exactly the right tone. Schilthuizens entertaining work reminds us not to take the mechanics of sexual intercourse for granted.'"
Publishers Weekly

A provocative voyage on the vast ocean of sexual function beyond the quiet backwater that we humans find ourselves in.
--Kirkus

The science of genitals is a relatively new field for biologists, who have long overlooked the evolutionary importance of species' private parts. Biologist Schilthuizen balances the silly and the serious to describe researchers' latest efforts to understand how evolution has graced the animal kingdom with such a bewildering diversity of reproductive organs. Schilthuizen tours some of nature's weirdest inventions, such as the chicken flea penis, which is actually a profusion of plates, combs, springs, and levers and looks like an exploded grandfather clock.
--Scientific American

Rather than furiously flipping through a stack of increasingly obscure science journals, those interested now have an easily digestible text to work with,the charmingly titled,Natures Nether Regions,by Dutch evolutionary biologist Menno Schilthuizen. Mennos book isa deep dive into the science of genitals, one that comes interspersed with a selection of the finest, and most scientifically-accurate, sex jokes.
Lex Berko, Vices Motherboard

A closer look between the legs (or, in the case of the Australian velvet worm, on the head) to explore what the sex lives of various creatures can teach us about reproduction, diversity and human sexuality. I actually missed my stop on the train this morning because I was engrossed in the chapter about duck sex.
Lindsay Abrams, Salon

Author Bio

MENNO SCHILTHUIZEN is a research scientist at the National Museum of Natural History in Leiden, the Netherlands. He has written on ecology and evolution for Science, Natural History, and other publications.