Jamie Condliffe, contributor
Like most modern folk, you probably consider sex the most natural of acts: an animalistic activity essential for procreation, as fundamental to life as eating and sleeping. But ponder the messy act in its heaving, panting glory for long, and you run into questions.
It seems slightly absurd that creatures must frolic in each others' presence, insert body parts and writhe around to produce offspring. Consider that intercourse is often an incredibly intrusive act, requiring significant physiological changes, and one can be left wondering why sex as we know it exists at all. Maybe bacteria, which procreate without interaction, have got things right.
Of course, evolutionary biologists know a thing or two about how carnal acts came to be and, in The Dawn of the Deed, John Long rounds up the evidence. Long takes an unusual approach to his book: the first half is autobiographical, outlining his own work and how it contributes to the understanding of historic humping, while the remainder takes a step back to explain how sex became what we know it as today.
If anything, Long?s accounts of his own research get in the way. It's not that his work isn't compelling - Long and his team were, after all, responsible for discovering that placoderms, a 380-million-year-old kind of extinct armoured fish, were the earliest known creatures to have performed intimate sexual reproduction, using gnarled early genitals known as claspers. But elsewhere his accounts of time in the media limelight and Scientific American cover stories overwhelm and smack of self-indulgence.
He makes up for things in the second half of the book. Stepping away from his own work loosens his writing, makes his tone more engaging and allows him to furnish the reader with the sex they came looking for.
While you've no doubt heard of homosexual penguins and fellating bats, there's plenty here to amuse even the best-read sex-crazed science lover. From male guinea pigs that deposit copulatory plugs to hinder competitors, to dust mites which inseminate their partners by stabbing their abdomens, it's impossible to read The Dawn of the Deed without a wry smile or raised eyebrow.
The real goal isn't to shock, though. In leaping merrily from copulating crustaceans to romping rodents, Long all the while draws together these titillating tales to plot the evolution of sexual acts. Through a wonderful series of case studies, Long deftly traces a line which joins his ancient placoderms to modern-day human sex, intercepting all manner of historic data points along the way. In particular, his chapter on dinosaur sex - describing the 2-metre penis of T.?rex and how long sauropod necks had to be kept horizontal to prevent fainting - is utterly compelling.
Of course, Long gradually reveals how reproduction is vital if large animals are to be able to adapt to the challenges their environment throws them, as well as helping them avoid damaging mutations. As for the apparent farce of intercourse, with its amusingly shaped genitals and unavoidable writhing - well, the existence of the modern penis can be traced back to individual genes that have existed for millions of year, and were themselves responsible for the gnarled genitals of Long?s ancient fish. It?s for answers like those that it?s easy to forgive the shortcomings of The Dawn of the Deed.
Book information:
The Dawn of the Deed: The prehistoric origins of sex by John A. Long
University of Chicago Press
$26
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