Why do fools fall in LOVE? When a male black-tipped hang fly catches a really toothsome morsel -- say a scrumptious spider or an aphid tartare, he may offer it up to a passing female. Like all males, his motive is transparent: he hopes she'll mate with him after he wines and dines her.

Male common terns offer fish to their intended sexual partners, and male human beings have also been known to offer food for sex. Sometimes the transaction is more subtle than the one between hang flies. But do the mating strategies of humans and hang flies have anything else in common? Hang flies, for example, exude a faint chemical signal announcing their availability. Do men and women communicate with similar signals?

Subadult female Redback spider. Courtesy of Queensland Museum.

There was scanty evidence for this proposition until about five years ago. Come to think of it, we've heard precious few reports of men being consumed -- eaten -- during the sex act by females 50 times their size. That kind of fatal dinner date occurs among the poisonous redback spiders in Australia (see "For an Australian spider..." in the bibliography). Intriguing evidence Today, there is intriguing evidence that humans communicate with unconscious chemical signals. That parallels a wider appreciation of the similarities between the apparatus and techniques humans use for love and sex, and those the "lower" animals use. That's not surprising: Evolution preserves techniques that work, particularly those that pass genes to the next generation. And if chemical messages do the job for hang flies, wolves, hamsters and elephants, who's to say they couldn't work for Homo sapiens? Getting the message? It's Valentine's time, and we Why Filers are feeling fixated on the biology of the mating game. Could structures and tactics that work for deer and hang flies help us top omnivores? Could chemistry explain love at first sight? And is this chemistry something we could bottle, like the chemicals that attract moths?

There are 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 documents.
Glossary | Bibliography | Credits | Search