Sex on Earth - Jules Howard

A journey of discovery through the ins and outs of reproduction in the animal kingdom

'Written with Bill Bryson-like wit' Booklist

'A writ-er who blends professional expertise in zoology with charm, wit, and a cockeyed sense of humor. What better guide through nature's red-light district could one ask for?' Natural History Magazine

1,000 million years ago, a sexual revolution occurred on Earth. Sex
happened for the first time; from this moment the world became ever more
colourful and bizarre, ringing with elaborate songs and dances, epic
battles, and rallying cries as the desires of males and females
collided, generation after generation.

All of your ancestors
took part and succeeded - an unbroken chain of sex right back to the
dawn of complex life on Earth. Well done you. Well done everything.


The world in which we live rings, bleeds, and howls with sex. It's
everywhere. Right now warring hordes are locking horns, preening
feathers, rampaging lustfully across the savanna, questioning the
fidelity of the ones they love. Birds are singing, flowers bloom. A
million females choose; a billion penises ejaculate (or snap off); a
trillion sperm battle, block and tackle.


Written in a brilliantly engaging
style by biologist Jules Howard, this fascinating and highly readable
work covers the how and why of sex on Earth, in all its diversity. From
sperm wars to cuckoldry, hermaphrodites and virgin births, spent males,
racy harems, clitoral births, hips, breasts and birdsong,
penis-percussion, and those riskiest and most elusive of all traits,
monogamy and true love, all this and more is discussed in Sex on
Earth, as Jules takes us on a voyage of discovery of the ins and
outs of animal reproduction.