The Shocking Sex Secrets of Insects
Prostitution is supposedly the oldest profession, which means that sex itself must be one of the oldest behaviors, a conclusion underscored by the recent discovery of two bugs fossilized as they coupled 165 million years ago. Simply being ancient doesn’t make a sex act interesting, but this one was noteworthy in part because behavior is generally so ephemeral, leaving none of the preserved remains we rely upon to tell us about how early forms of life ate, or ran, or saw the world.
The fossil also showed in breathtaking detail the positioning of the pair in flagrante delicto. While the finer points of the orientation of this particular duo may have been affected by the pressure of the sediment that caused their preservation, the finding underscores the unlikely seeming importance of sexual habits in evolution.… Seguir leyendo »