| Headless Males Make Great Lovers: And Other Unusual Natural Histories Contributor(s): Crump, Marty (Author), Crump, Alan (Illustrator) |
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ISBN: 0226121992 ISBN-13: 9780226121994 Publisher: University of Chicago Press OUR PRICE: $28.50 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: October 2005 Annotation: Well-known tropical field biologist Marty Crump examines the bizarre conduct of animals as they mate, parent, feed, defend themselves, and communicate. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Science | Life Sciences - Zoology - General - Science | Acoustics & Sound |
| Dewey: 590 |
| LCCN: 2005007592 |
| Physical Information: 0.74" H x 6.26" W x 9.3" (0.96 lbs) 212 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: The natural world is filled with diverse--not to mention quirky and odd--animal behaviors. Consider the male praying mantis that continues to mate after being beheaded; the spiders, insects, and birds that offer gifts of food in return for sex; the male hip-pocket frog that carries his own tadpoles; the baby spiders that dine on their mother; the beetle that craves excrement; or the starfish that sheds an arm or two to escape a predator's grasp. Headless Males Make Great Lovers and Other Unusual Natural Histories celebrates the extraordinary world of animals with essays on curious creatures and their amazing behaviors. In five thematic chapters, Marty Crump--a tropical field biologist well known for her work with the reproductive behavior of amphibians--examines the bizarre conduct of animals as they mate, parent, feed, defend themselves, and communicate. Crump's enthusiasm for the unusual behaviors she describes-from sex change and free love in sponges to aphrodisiac concoctions in bats-is visible on every page, thanks to her skilled storytelling, which makes even sea slugs, dung beetles, ticks, and tapeworms fascinating and appealing. Steeped in biology, Headless Males Make Great Lovers points out that diverse and unrelated animals often share seemingly bizarre behaviors--evidence, Crump argues, that these natural histories, though outwardly weird, are successful ways of living. Illustrated throughout, and filled with vignettes of personal and scientific interest, Headless Males Make Great Lovers will enchant the general reader with its tales of blood-squirting horned lizards and intestine-ejecting sea cucumbers--all in the service of a greater appreciation of the diversity of the natural histories of animals. |
Contributor Bio(s): Crump, Marty: - Marty Crump is currently an adjunct professor of biology at Utah State and Northern Arizona Universities. She has been a herpetologist for more than forty-five years, working with tropical amphibians in the areas of parental care, reproduction, territoriality, cannibalism, and tadpole ecology. Her work has drawn attention to the issue of declining amphibian populations. In addition to her popular science writing, she is the author of the recent award-winning children's book, The Mystery of Darwin's Frog. She lives in Logan, UT. |