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Headless Males Make Great Lovers: And Other Unusual Natural Histories
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.
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.
211 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2005
8 people are currently reading
174 people want to read
About the author
Marty Crump
11 books15 followersMarty Crump is a behavioral ecologist who works with tropical amphibians in the areas of parental care, reproduction, territoriality, cannibalism, and tadpole ecology. She has published several books on her research and experiences in tropical areas such as Costa Rica, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. One of these books, In Search of the Golden Frog (University of Chicago Press, 2000) chronicles her unique experiences in Costa Rica's Monteverde Cloudforest, where she collected data on the now extinct Golden Toad highlighted in this module. She acted as a mentor to the authors of this module, since her research is invaluable when profiling the Golden Toad species. Marty received her Doctorate degree from the University of Kansas in 1974 and is currently an adjunct professor at Northern Arizona University.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 3, 2023
Review The title indicates a light book of amusing animal titbits, but in fact it is quite serious field-observation science and interesting. I've read quite a few animal and evolution books because I'm particularly interested in how animals feel love and appreciate beauty, how far back they originated and how similar our experience of them is. I don't think many emotions originated with people, mostly there is long evolutionary history behind them.
I don't really believe any of that guff put out by Richard Attenborough and the other male documentary film makers about the always-subservient females and looks only being about health and fitness. I enjoy the shows, or I used to, but after reading Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, I began to see that the female perspective, animal as much as human, was generally ignored.
Once I was in Kew Gardens in London with my son. We were by a little rockery and there was a magnificent golden pheasant. These are big birds, beak to tail close to 4', and are wild in the UK. We were within 6' of the bird who was ignoring us. Up came another male accompanied by two drab brown females. There was a fight between the males, lots of fluffing of feathers and jumping up in the air claws outstretched. The incumbent won and the stranger slunk away, head down. Now, in the world of documentaries and animal behaviour books, the two females were supposed to have gone to the victor who quite obviously expected them to since the whole fight was about them, but they didn't, they walked away with the loser, the bird they had come with.
So obviously beauty in birds is not just the obvious so-called indicator of genetic strength and health that appeals to their deepest breeding needs. It's something else and the females are capable of discriminating on other grounds. But what?
The book talks at length about Australian bower birds and the beautiful bowers and dance platforms they build to entice females. Some of them sort colours into piles, some of them make paint by grinding a pigment with saliva, and one of them, the beautiful blue satin bowerbird (who likes blue best, but is ok with a bit of yellow-green) not only makes paint but uses a tool - bark - to apply it with.
The art is instinctive but is also cultural (and varies from place to place and according to the availability of materials) and is very much learned. Bowerbirds with 5 years experience of building bowers build notably better ones to our eyes and obviously to the females too as they score the majority of the matings! Bowerbirds in an area with a lot of pretty grey items but few blue ones, will, if moved, still prefer the grey ones.
If the definition of art is, "Art, in its broadest sense, is a form of communication. It means whatever the artist intends it to mean, and this meaning is shaped by the materials, techniques, and forms it makes use of, as well as the ideas and feelings it creates in its viewers ". Then these birds are true artists, and our idea of creativity is, again, evolutionary, and not something exclusive to humans
Reading notes We don't tend to think of fish thinking and solving problems, but this is a proof they definitely do. Konrad Lorenz, the Nazi pro-eugenics scientist who wrote the brilliant King Solomon's Ring, observed in his laboratory two beautiful jewel cichlids. The female was guarding babies which were in a shallow depression beneath her. The male was swimming around the tank and returning truants to their mother.
Lorenz offered the fish a bit of earthworm to eat. The female would not leave guarding her babies to take it but the male did. As soon as had the earthworm in his mouth he saw one of his babies swimming away. He immediately went after it and gulped it into his mouth.
Now he had a dilemma. The food needed to go down to his stomach and the baby needed to go back to the mother. The fish remained still in the water obviously working out what to do. Then he spat the contents of his mouth on to the ground and immediately picked the earthworm up again. His baby lay on the sand beneath him and he ate the earthworm in a leisurely way. When he'd finished, he again picked up the baby in his mouth and returned it to the mother.
That's real problem-solving and I didn't know that these tiny fish were capable of it. I love it when books open my eyes. My mind and world expands!
I don't really believe any of that guff put out by Richard Attenborough and the other male documentary film makers about the always-subservient females and looks only being about health and fitness. I enjoy the shows, or I used to, but after reading Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, I began to see that the female perspective, animal as much as human, was generally ignored.
Once I was in Kew Gardens in London with my son. We were by a little rockery and there was a magnificent golden pheasant. These are big birds, beak to tail close to 4', and are wild in the UK. We were within 6' of the bird who was ignoring us. Up came another male accompanied by two drab brown females. There was a fight between the males, lots of fluffing of feathers and jumping up in the air claws outstretched. The incumbent won and the stranger slunk away, head down. Now, in the world of documentaries and animal behaviour books, the two females were supposed to have gone to the victor who quite obviously expected them to since the whole fight was about them, but they didn't, they walked away with the loser, the bird they had come with.
So obviously beauty in birds is not just the obvious so-called indicator of genetic strength and health that appeals to their deepest breeding needs. It's something else and the females are capable of discriminating on other grounds. But what?
The book talks at length about Australian bower birds and the beautiful bowers and dance platforms they build to entice females. Some of them sort colours into piles, some of them make paint by grinding a pigment with saliva, and one of them, the beautiful blue satin bowerbird (who likes blue best, but is ok with a bit of yellow-green) not only makes paint but uses a tool - bark - to apply it with.
The art is instinctive but is also cultural (and varies from place to place and according to the availability of materials) and is very much learned. Bowerbirds with 5 years experience of building bowers build notably better ones to our eyes and obviously to the females too as they score the majority of the matings! Bowerbirds in an area with a lot of pretty grey items but few blue ones, will, if moved, still prefer the grey ones.
If the definition of art is, "Art, in its broadest sense, is a form of communication. It means whatever the artist intends it to mean, and this meaning is shaped by the materials, techniques, and forms it makes use of, as well as the ideas and feelings it creates in its viewers ". Then these birds are true artists, and our idea of creativity is, again, evolutionary, and not something exclusive to humans
Reading notes We don't tend to think of fish thinking and solving problems, but this is a proof they definitely do. Konrad Lorenz, the Nazi pro-eugenics scientist who wrote the brilliant King Solomon's Ring, observed in his laboratory two beautiful jewel cichlids. The female was guarding babies which were in a shallow depression beneath her. The male was swimming around the tank and returning truants to their mother.
Lorenz offered the fish a bit of earthworm to eat. The female would not leave guarding her babies to take it but the male did. As soon as had the earthworm in his mouth he saw one of his babies swimming away. He immediately went after it and gulped it into his mouth.
Now he had a dilemma. The food needed to go down to his stomach and the baby needed to go back to the mother. The fish remained still in the water obviously working out what to do. Then he spat the contents of his mouth on to the ground and immediately picked the earthworm up again. His baby lay on the sand beneath him and he ate the earthworm in a leisurely way. When he'd finished, he again picked up the baby in his mouth and returned it to the mother.
That's real problem-solving and I didn't know that these tiny fish were capable of it. I love it when books open my eyes. My mind and world expands!
March 1, 2019
This was a really fun book to read. Sections are short to moderately long and written for the layperson. There are a few new words, but they're biological terms, so you can easily keep reading. Features tons of freaky animal behavior from lizards that squirt blood from their eyes to hermaphrodite slugs that can form orgy rings. If you like learning weird things, definitely pick this book up!
May 18, 2009
You'd think with such a boffo title, it would be a laugh a minute, wouldn't you? But instead it manages to be Gobi-level dry and technical, even while the author sounds so thrilled by it all he might as well be breathing helium. OK, but not great.
September 22, 2010
I mostly only looked at the first two chapters. In Chapter 1, this book doesn't cover much in the way of new ground; in Chapter 2 there are some examples I hadn't seen before. (Mostly these chapters dealt with insects and reptiles, though.)
August 9, 2019
Informative book that really captured my interest however in certain parts the anecdotes became repetitive. The author could have been more succinct by editing out the multiple examples of an animal behaviour.
Overall however, this was a good read that reinvigorated my love for the nonfiction genre.
Overall however, this was a good read that reinvigorated my love for the nonfiction genre.
April 21, 2023
While the title made this an embarrassing read on the. Us, the rest of the experience was fantastic .
All kinds of unusual and amazing animal facts and feats gathered together in a readable scientific roster of the unbelievable.a real gem
All kinds of unusual and amazing animal facts and feats gathered together in a readable scientific roster of the unbelievable.a real gem
March 2, 2019
Fine and fairly funny look at some weird bits of nature (my favorite is the orgy snail/slugs)
April 17, 2025
This was really great! I’m not a scientist, but I do appreciate science. This a fun, quick read of just weird science facts from all sorts of creatures in nature. Highly suggested.
September 15, 2013
Any careful and patient observation will reveal the behavioral patterns of any creature. But true scientists dig deeper and learn, literally, the ins and outs of the wild and wacky behavior of nature. There are males out there that die before they’re ever born, males who die before, during or after mating, males who lock horns or bare tusks and risk violent injury or even death just to keep their harems. There are females who take care of their young, others who abandon them soon after birth and others that die just bringing their spawn into the world.
It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and this book is for anybody who wants to learn just how other beings on this planet eat, mate, bear offspring and defend territory. The author purports barely to scratch the surface of the different odd behaviors of the critters and creepy-crawlies out there. As Mr. Crump writes, there’s a lot more to learn about the natural world and this book is a fine launching point.
It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and this book is for anybody who wants to learn just how other beings on this planet eat, mate, bear offspring and defend territory. The author purports barely to scratch the surface of the different odd behaviors of the critters and creepy-crawlies out there. As Mr. Crump writes, there’s a lot more to learn about the natural world and this book is a fine launching point.
September 13, 2007
Fun, accessible recounting of dozens of fascinating facts about animals. Covers some of the behaviours we think odd or creepy, and some that are more traditionally fascinating. Veers into cuteness, but only rarely. Though it's not deep, it's very wide, and full of lots of interesting anecdotes.
February 6, 2012
So far it's wonderful! Very informative, but not dry or overly technical. Interesting studies of mating, food-finding, communication and other behaviors in various animal species, and intermixes entertaining (and sometimes blush-worthy) comparisons with human behaviors.
October 19, 2011
Way too many examples. I am not that interested in the sex lives of reptiles.
June 22, 2012
Great book for teachers and anyone wanting to learn a bit more about the incredible diversity in nature.
June 18, 2013
got very bogged down in detail
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews