Adam Rutherford ruins Valentine’s Day


You may not want to read it, but if you’re feeling particularly cynical, this Twitter thread about romantic nature is refreshing. Lots of necrophilia, though, and it’s sad to learn that those monogamous swans cheat.

Comments

  1. KG says

    In much the same vein, I highly recommend Olivia Judson’s Dr Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation.

  2. Alan G. Humphrey says

    It’s a good thing that humans have developed such myriad ways to communicate and fully understand that we don’t need to use, and completely reject the usage of, the methods of dominance that emerged from sexual selection in any of our daily transactions…

    … oh, um, …wait?

  3. silvrhalide says

    You might want to check this out as well.
    https://www.pbs.org/video/nature-sage-grouse-sex/
    “One male mated with 37 females in 37 minutes.” Also, three quarters of the female sage grouse will mate with the same male. Not that they will each choose a male and monogamously mate only with that male. No… they all mate with the SAME male.
    or just check out PBS’s Nature series “The Sagebrush Sea” and “What Females Want and Males Will Do”.
    In “The Sagebrush Sea” researchers create a fembot sage grouse. It is the fakest of the fake, we are talking Tom & Jerry levels of “bomb dressed like a woman” levels of fake.
    The sagebrush grouse males don’t care or else can’t tell the difference and will court it aggressively.
    All the fembot grouse has to do is look in the general direction of a male who immediately reads this as “SHE WANTS ME”.
    It is never not funny.