A Most Private Evolution

Dumb Designs for Sex: Evolutionary biology walks on the weird side

Maybe female seed beetles have their own what-the-bleep exclamation. Even for insects, it’s difficult to imagine any other reaction to a male Callosobruchus maculatus beetle’s sex organ, which has spikes.

IMPRACTICAL PLUMAGE Ridiculously long tail feathers don’t make sense for survival of the fittest, so Darwin developed the idea of sexual selection to explain features such as the impractical plumage of some male birds (hummingbird pair illustrated in Descent of Man).