The Dawn of the Deed
eBook - ePub

The Dawn of the Deed

The Prehistoric Origins of Sex

  1. 296 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Dawn of the Deed

The Prehistoric Origins of Sex

About this book

"[A] deliciously written account of the evolution of sex, in all of its bizarre manifestations" by a noted paleontologist—"Read, blush, and enjoy!" (Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel ). We all know about the birds and the bees, but what about the ancient placoderm fishes and the dinosaurs? In 2008, paleontologist John A. Long and a team of researchers announced their discovery of a 380-million-year-old placoderm fish fossil, known as "the mother fish, " which revealed the earliest known example of internal fertilization. As a result, placoderms are now considered to be the first species to have had intimate sexual reproduction, or sex as we know it—sort of. Inspired by this incredible find, Long began a quest to uncover the evolutionary history of copulation and insemination. In The Dawn of the Deed, he takes readers on a lively tour through the sex lives of ancient fish and the unusual mating habits of arthropods, tortoises, and even a well-endowed Argentine Duck. Long discusses these discoveries alongside what we know about reproductive biology and evolutionary theory, using the fossil record to provide a provocative account of prehistoric sex. The Dawn of the Deed also explores fascinating revelations about animal reproduction, from homosexual penguins to monogamous seahorses to the difficulties of dinosaur romance.

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Yes, you can access The Dawn of the Deed by John A. Long in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Physical Sciences & Biology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Copyright
  3. Title Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Foreword
  7. Preface: Sex, Death and Evolution
  8. 1. The Machismo of the Argentine Duck
  9. 2. The Mother of All Fossils
  10. 3. The Ptyctodontid Kind of Congress
  11. 4. Announcing Fossil Sex to the Queen
  12. 5. Paleozoic Paternity Problems
  13. 6. Finding the Daddy Fish
  14. 7. Down and Dirty in the Devonian
  15. 8. At the Dawn of Archaic Sex
  16. 9. Sex and the Single Ostracod
  17. 10. Sex on the Beach
  18. 11. Dinosaur Sex and Other Earthshaking Discoveries
  19. 12. We Ain’t Nothing but Mammals
  20. 13. Sperm Wars: What Fossils Can’t Tell Us
  21. 14. From Clasper to Penis: We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby
  22. Epilogue: The Greatest Mystery of Biology
  23. Notes
  24. Acknowledgements
  25. Index