A Little Queer Natural History

This splendid debut from Davis, a science writer for London’s Natural History Museum, surveys the dazzling variety of sexual behavior and expression in the animal, fungi, and plant kingdoms. Scientists have obscured “queerness” in the natural world for centuries, Davis writes, recounting how, for instance, naval surgeon George Murray Levick’s observations of sex between male Adélie penguins while Levick was on an Antarctic expedition in the 1910s were excised from his book about the trip at the request of his publisher, the Natural History Museum. Contending that sex categories are not as straightforward as often assumed, Davis notes that scientists estimate one in every 10,000 butterflies is “gynandromorphic,” meaning that “one pair of wings are genetically male and the other genetically female.” Elsewhere, Davis discusses unisex whiptail lizards that reproduce by “virgin birth,” European yew trees that can grow “male” pollen-bearing branches and “female” seed-bearing branches on a single tree, and splitgill mushrooms that have “evolved more than 23,000 mating types.” The fascinating science makes a resounding case that the natural world features more diverse expressions of sexual activity and biological sex than commonly believed. The result is a much needed corrective to blinkered notions of what’s considered “natural.” Photos. (Oct.)