Ain't Love Grand!: Earthworms to Elephant Seals

By Marty Crump and Alan Crump

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 insects, 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; or the starfish that sheds an arm or two to escape a predator's grasp. In Ain’t Love Grand, 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. More importantly, Crump points out that diverse and unrelated animals often share seemingly erratic behaviors—evidence, Crump argues, that these natural histories, though outwardly weird, are actually successful ways of living.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Release date: Jun 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9780226094434

Book preview

RAMPANT MACHISMO

When the beachmaster [male elephant seal] is angered by a serious challenge, he thunders across the sand, humping and heaving his huge body with surprising speed and taking no notice whatever of what lies in his way.

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH, The Trials of Life

Loud snorts erupted as I ambled toward the beach on Península Valdés, Argentina. Around the bend lay hundreds of giant brown or gray four-ton sausages parked from one end of the beach to the other. Binoculars revealed the sausages to be southern elephant seals. Some slept, using one another for pillows. Others lazily rolled over from time to time. One balanced on his front flippers, humped his body, and propelled himself forward, like a giant inchworm crossing the sand. A smaller individual lumbered after another, in what appeared to be a sausage race. As I focused on one particularly large, ponderous pile of blubber, he threw back his head, proboscis dangling down in his open mouth, and