Being a man is not easy. Especially if you need to produce sperm twenty times your own height. Or pump out billions and billions of sperm with every ejaculation. Or mate a hundred times a day to satisfy your partner. Or perform other feats of exorbitant sexuality.
Dear Doctor Tatyana!
I am an Australian warbler and I am very concerned about my husband. He runs to the doctor all the time because he thinks his sperm count is too low and we won’t be able to have children. But there are eight billion sperm in his ejaculate every time, and I don’t think that’s small. Tell me, does he really have a problem or is he just nervous?
Puzzled from the End of the World
Running to the doctor, you say? I would say that your partner is not a hypochondriac, but a liar, and his visits to the doctor are a disguised way of pursuing someone else on the side. Australian warblers are notorious for having extramarital affairs. Let me give you some advice. You can easily guess when an Australian warbler is going on a date: then he carries a pink petal in his beak as a gift to his lover. Why pink? Because it looks very advantageous when the warbler fluffs up the iridescent blue feathers on its cheeks.
A much more important question is why does a bird smaller than my palm need to ejaculate more than eight billion sperm each time? There are only about 180 million of them in a portion of human sperm. If you think about it, it's very strange. Eight billion for one tiny egg. For what?
In fact, the number of sperm is directly related to how difficult it is for them to reach the egg. Let's say if you were a tree, the amount of pollen you produced would depend on the method of pollination. Let's take fig trees for example. Some of them are pollinated by thrifty wasps, which tirelessly collect and distribute pollen - these specimens can spend it carefully. Others get lazy wasps, not particularly bothering themselves by flying around flowers: these figs, willy-nilly, have to be wasteful. So in a species like us or you, sperm counts should naturally decline, right?
Not necessary. In some species - fish, for example - partners meet, but instead of having sex, they release sperm and eggs into the sea. Moreover, the number of sperm in them turns out to be slightly greater than the number of eggs. But if you look at birds, mammals and other species that engage in sexual intercourse, the picture is completely different. We will see that the males of those species that have females produce the maximum number of sperm - drum roll please! - are distinguished by debauchery.
Experts believe there are two reasons why males of species in which females hop from one lover to another produce large numbers of sperm. The first is what biologists call “sperm competition”: indeed, the sperm of different partners compete with each other for the right to fertilize the egg. And since this competition occurs on the principle of a lottery - the more tickets you buy, the higher the chance of winning, then the male who managed to produce the maximum number of sperm has the highest chance of fertilization. And since the number of sperm is determined genetically, over time, the constant success of males with their maximum number will lead to an increase in the number of sperm in all males of the population. Taking this into account, males who are constantly involved in sperm competition usually have larger testes - factories for the production of sperm - relative to body size. Indeed, experiments with yellow dung flies—hairy flies that mate and lay eggs on fresh cow pats—have shown that sperm competition increases in testicular size over the course of ten generations.
If we take the argument to its logical conclusion, it turns out that males, who do not have to participate in sperm competition, produce just enough sperm to fertilize each egg. Alas, such an enviable share goes to very few guys. Among them are seahorses and their close relatives - pipefish (the pipefish looks like a horse that has been straightened and given a streamlined shape). These males are famous for their pregnancy. Typically, females lay their eggs in the male's brood chamber, where he fertilizes them, so there is no risk of his sperm colliding with others belonging to a competitor. No one has counted the number of sperm in the ejaculate of most species of seahorses, but the Japanese pipefish, which lives in seagrass beds off the coast of Japan, has been subjected to this procedure. As expected, their number turned out to be extremely low.
The second reason why males produce a lot of sperm is due to the fact that a large number of them die when passing through the female reproductive tract: out of the millions that set out on the journey, only a few reach their goal. Fantastically high levels of sperm death were noted more than 300 years ago, but there is still no reasonable explanation for why so many of them die at the very beginning of their journey.
Oddly enough, the female reproductive system is often hostile to sperm. Nobody knows why this is so. It would seem that she is supposed to tenderly care and help the sperm to achieve their goal, but instead they are surrounded by danger and betrayal at every turn. Females can digest the sperm, expel it, or simply collect it and remove it. Even in species where females are able to store sperm for many years, they retain only a small number of sperm. For example, a queen bee, having mated with 17 partners, will receive about 102 million sperm from them - 6 million from each, but will retain only 5.3 million needed to fertilize the eggs. In those species that do not store sperm, their path completely resembles a bloody battle.
For example, in humans, sperm begin their odyssey in the acidic environment of the vagina. But acid is harmful to sperm (which is why a strategically placed slice of lemon is a fairly effective, albeit highly imperfect, contraceptive). Only 10% of sperm will be able to break through this barrier and continue on their way. Next, they will have to overcome the cervix - a barrier covered with mucus, which will allow, at best, 10% of travelers to pass through. At the same time, mucus is only one of the threats that await sperm in the cervix. At the first hint of sperm, white blood cells - soldiers of the immune system - fill the cervix and uterine cavity, destroying all strangers they can detect. After an hour of sex, rabbits collect a huge army of white blood cells in the cervix. Among representatives of humanity, this armada begins to accumulate within fifteen minutes after the start of sexual intercourse, and after four hours there are already about a billion fighters in it. That's why by the time sperm reach the fallopian tubes - the place where an egg ready for fertilization can be found - their number will drop from countless millions to just a few hundred. This is why a man with 50 million sperm in his ejaculate - a seemingly sufficient number - is most likely to be infertile.
Measuring the level of environmental hostility is much more difficult than counting sperm, so we don't know how much it varies among various types or in different representatives of the same species. Personally, I hypothesize that the reproductive system's increased hostility to sperm is a female evolutionary response to increased sperm counts in men. Thus, men who have more of them have an advantage. In rabbits, for example, the number of sperm reaching each of the intermediate points in the reproductive tract depends on how many there were at the start. But why is such aggressiveness of the reproductive system beneficial for women? If you think about it, it seems simply harmful: after all, if aggression exceeds a certain level, the eggs will not be fertilized and the woman will not be able to give birth to a child. One possible answer: in this way, the woman ensures that the egg is fertilized by the highest quality sperm. Another option is that aggressiveness initially served as protection against possible infections. The man, in turn, always sought to break through the defensive lines. Indeed, the ejaculate of humans and other mammals contains substances that suppress the female immune system. To counteract attempts to suppress the immune system, the female body may have begun to look for ways to strengthen its immune defenses. Thus, the endless evolutionary cycle of action and reaction began again.
This brings me back to the question of why your husband needs so many sperm. Australian warblers live and raise children in pairs, but still prefer free love. They are charmingly spontaneous in their sexual behavior, and females, as a rule, have a permanent lover along with a permanent partner. Thus, sperm competition among them is very high. Often, not a single chick from a nest is the biological offspring of the very father who carefully raises them. Perhaps you, while your husband is walking somewhere on the side, allow yourself little pranks?
Dear Doctor Tatyana!
I learned that it takes me three weeks to produce a single sperm. Perhaps this is because his tail is twenty times longer than my entire body. It seems to me that this is a monstrous injustice: after all, I am just a small fruit fly, Drosophila bifurca. Is it possible to make a prosthesis?
Waiting for cum from Ohio
Unfortunately, there is no market for artificial sperm tails, so you'll have to do your own research. You're right, it's not fair. Why is a fruit fly three millimeters long—smaller than the dash that precedes this phrase—forced to produce a sperm 58 millimeters long? A person is much larger than you, but makes do with a thousand times smaller tailed cells. If a man were to follow your scale, his sperm would be the length of a blue whale. It would be interesting to take a look!
In contrast to evolutionary changes in the number of sperm, the evolution of their size and shape has been studied very little. All we can say with certainty is that sperm turn out to be simpler and smaller if fertilization occurs outside the female’s body.
First, let's touch on the shape of sperm. They usually look like tadpoles with large heads and wriggling tails. However, in many species, spermatozoa differ markedly from the described model. A popular evolutionary invention was paired sperm that move exclusively in tandem. American possums, water beetles, millipedes, domestic silverfish, some sea shellfish. Hook-shaped sperm are also a very fashionable thing. Koalas, rodents, crickets - all of them have sperm ending in hooks. Bessyazhechniki - small creatures related to insects - became the world's first Ultimate players: their sperm are shaped like disks. In lobsters they look like fireworks in the shape of a “wheel of fire”, and in some land snails they look like a corkscrew. In termites, spermatozoa are decorated with a kind of beard, since they have about a hundred tails, and in nematodes, they resemble amoebas and, instead of swimming, crawl towards the target. And we have not yet considered spermatophores - packages of sperm that many creatures use to deliver goods to their destination. After an unusually long act of love, the giant octopus, for example, releases a spermatophore, like a bomb more than a meter long, with about 10 billion sperm packed inside, which explodes in the female's reproductive tract.
Since all this variety of forms has evolved independently in different species, we should think about what benefits it brings. For example, hooks could help tadpoles get through reproductive system females, however, as far as I know, no one has yet been able to observe such an effect. What are the possible benefits from other forms? Here your guesses will be no worse than mine. However, as far as we know, the shape of sperm has nothing to do with female promiscuity. But the size of the tadpoles may have a direct bearing on it. For example, in nematodes, large sperm are more likely to fertilize an egg, since they crawl faster than small ones, and it is more difficult for rival tadpoles to push them out of the way. Similarly, among root mites - agricultural pests - a male with large sperm is more likely to achieve fertilization than one with smaller ones. This is in fact general rule: Males of species in which females are promiscuous not only produce more sperm, but also produce larger sperm. Alas, both indicators cannot increase indefinitely: at some point, the production of large sperm leads to their number decreasing. Therefore, in most species, the desire to increase the number of male reproductive cells prevails over the desire to make them as large as possible.
However, in some species, numbers are not as important as the need to produce sperm as large as possible. In the Huge Tadpole Breeders Hall of Fame we can meet a wide variety of representatives of the animal kingdom. And although you Drosophila bifurca, - recognized champion, in last years The palm beetles are dominated by featherwing beetles, smoothies, ostracods (small crustaceans that look like beans with legs), mites, Australian earth snails Hedleyella falconeri, ornate frogs and a variety of species of fruit flies. They say that ostracod sperm are capable of fighting with each other, smearing rivals into a cake, although, as far as I know, no one has yet observed this battle in laboratory conditions.
Alas, giant sperm actually have only one advantage: their appearance can surprise onlookers to death. Personally, I don’t know why some species need such huge reproductive cells. We can say for sure that the size of sperm does not correlate in any way with the size of the egg it fertilizes, as previously assumed. Scientists don't look at eggs as closely as they do sperm (in species where fertilization occurs inside the female's body, sperm is simply easier to study), but other species of fruit flies lay larger eggs than you do, and they also have male reproductive cells less. Another suggestion is that the giant sperm is a gift to the female, which helps her provide the eggs with the necessary nutrition. However, in many species only a small part of the huge sperm makes it into the egg, so this explanation does not seem convincing to me either. Could a giant male reproductive cell block a female's reproductive tract by acting as a chastity belt? In beetles, this is possible: the male's sperm almost completely fills the entire allocated volume, and there is simply no room left for the sperm of competitors. But this explanation does not apply to ostracods, whose females have an amazing system for storing sperm, which is stored in secluded nooks not directly connected with the place of egg production. To get to the egg and fertilize it, the ostracod sperm will have to leave the female’s body and travel a long way through the open air to reach another entrance. And your closest relative, Drosophila hydei(sperm length is 23 mm), females not only meet with different males, but also mix their sperm. Thus, if a lady has several lovers in one day, each of them will become the father of part of her children.
And yet, there must be some reasons for the appearance of colossal sperm sizes. After all, if you find out what price each species has to pay to produce huge sex cells, it turns out that it is not that high. While your distant relative Drosophila melanogaster(sperm length - 1.91 mm) can copulate within a few hours of emerging from the cocoon, you have to wait at least 17 days - that's how long it will take you to raise your giants. But it's not that much. Unless something unfortunate happens to you, you can live as long as six months - quite a long time for a fruit fly, so waiting just 17 days to lose your virginity is not such a terrible ordeal. Your other relatives Drosophila pachea(sperm length - 16.53 mm), males spend the first half of their adult life, being unable to reproduce. You have another consolation: where most males require an army of millions of sperm, you can easily get by with a few selected specimens.
Dear Doctor Tatyana,
I am an angry Drosophila melanogaster fruit fly. When I was still a larva, I was told that sperm costs nothing: it is easy to produce and easy to waste. So I started spending as soon as I reached maturity. Spent as much as I could. But it turns out that I was deceived: I am still in the prime of my life, and the supply of sperm has already dried up, all the females fly by with contempt. Who should I blame for my tragedy?
Withered from London
It would be nice to get our old friend Bateman to answer this question. “Sperm is worthless” is one of his conclusions. But this is just a myth, probably the most popular in the world. And while I sympathize with you because you have been misled, I can't help but feel a certain smug satisfaction. Wow, Drosophila melanogaster, Bateman's experimental organism - and suddenly such problems!
I'll repeat it briefly again. Bateman believed that since one sperm is worth less than one egg, the factors limiting reproduction are different for males and females. He argued that females are limited by the number of eggs they produce, and males are limited only by the number of females they seduce. By this logic, it is assumed that sperm can be wasted for any purpose almost indefinitely, while each egg has a good chance of being fertilized.
However, this is not quite true. Marine animals - from sponges to sea urchins- do not have sex, instead releasing sperm into the water. Some species do the same with caviar. This means that the sperm do not have much time to meet the eggs. In many similar species, a significant part of the eggs remains unfertilized. Some of the sponges release sperm in an amazing way - like finalists in a competition for the most convincing image of Vesuvius: they throw out huge muddy clouds in all directions, and this lasts from ten minutes to half an hour.
Among terrestrial organisms, plants are equally limited in time. Pollinators - living organisms that carry pollen, such as bees - are very unreliable; they can eat pollen instead of delivering it female flowers, so the latter often lack it. The cheeky Arizema trifolia flower produces ten times more seeds when pollinated by scientists rather than insects. Similar difficulties are typical for organisms that must rely on ocean currents, the will of the wind, or the whims of intermediaries. The lemon tetra, a small fish native to the Amazon, is unable to fertilize all the eggs a female produces on a given day. Success will be greater the more sperm the male manages to eject, so fish quickly realize that they can spend their energy more efficiently if they produce more sperm, instead of looking for more and more new partners. It's no surprise that female lemon tetras prefer mates who don't mix with others in front of them. Among blue-headed wrasses - Atlantic fish that live near coral reefs - the largest males spend their sperm very sparingly, sparingly throwing it into the sea, often at a greater depth than is convenient for females.
The main difficulty, of course, is that males cannot produce one sperm per egg. No, one female egg requires hundreds, thousands, millions of them! It is not easy. The male ribbon snake rests for 24 hours after sex (although sex in this species is usually very intense). A male zebra finch, a small bird in black and white stripes, having intercourse three times in three hours, completely uses up the entire supply of sperm, and it will take him five days to recover. A male blue crab takes 15 days to recover. Even rams, which have a reserve of sperm for 95 ejaculations (for comparison: a person has enough for one and a half), run out after some time: after six days of intercourse, the number of sperm in the ram’s ejaculate drops from more than 10 billion to less than 50 million, after why he is not able to fertilize a female. And some snakes simply melt away from sex. Vipers, poisonous European snakes, noticeably lose weight already at the very beginning of the period of love, although at this time they are actually not doing anything: they are just basking in the sun and producing sperm. This is a way to burn extra calories.
But the surest evidence that the amount of sperm is limited comes from hermaphrodites - for example, slugs and snails - which combine male and female essences. According to the unlimited sperm theory, hermaphrodites will use up all their eggs before they run out of sperm and, given a choice, will choose to remain as males. However, this does not happen in most species.
Let's take for example Caenorhabditis elegans, a tiny, transparent roundworm beloved by geneticists. It differs from most hermaphrodites because its individuals come in two sexes: males and hermaphrodites. There are generally two ways for hermaphrodites to have sex. It can be bidirectional, when both individuals simultaneously inseminate each other, or unidirectional, when during sexual intercourse one individual plays the role of a male and the other plays the role of a female. U Caenorhabditis elegans Hermaphrodites cannot have sexual intercourse, however, since they each produce both eggs and sperm, they can fertilize themselves (with males, of course, producing only sperm). If hermaphrodite Caenorhabditis elegans does not meet a male, he will spend all his sperm, fertilizing about three hundred eggs. It follows from this that the sperm ends earlier, since after this the individual Caenorhabditis elegans continue to lay unfertilized eggs, of which there are about a hundred more.
However, it is possible Caenorhabditis elegans - a special case. Typically, hermaphrodites of this species do not produce sperm and eggs at the same time, but start with sperm. Thus, the more sperm they produce, the longer they have to wait for fertilization and the older they become, the older they become. But too much delay is fraught with problems: being a worm, you will leave more descendants the sooner you get down to business.
Nevertheless Caenorhabditis elegans is not the only hermaphrodite who can waste all his sperm. Its quantity is limited in sea cucumbers, water snails, and marine flatworms (all of these organisms seem similar friend to each other, but they are only distantly related. Their appearance and lifestyle evolved independently). Aquatic flatworm Dugesia gonocephala, engaged in mutual fertilization, produces a portion of sperm in two days, so these individuals spend sperm sparingly and do not spend more than they receive: as soon as the partner stops, they also stop the process. And sea cucumbers Navanax inermis Those who prefer unidirectional sex usually act as females, and if the sperm supply were unlimited, they would do the opposite.
If you still doubt that the role of a male is quite expensive, look at banana slugs - huge yellow slugs living in the northwestern part of the Pacific coast of the United States. These hermaphrodites have unidirectional sex, with each of them only getting the chance to be a male once, regardless of the amount of sperm produced. These creatures have gigantic, complex penises that often get stuck during sex, and therefore, after mating is completed, the slug itself or its “partner” usually chews off the annoying organ. It no longer grows, and from that moment on the slug acts only as a female.
So let's take a closer look at your situation. Males Drosophila melanogaster usually suffer from two types of sex-induced sterility. The first is temporary: after each date, the male should rest for a day to restore his reserves. The second type is permanent. Unfortunately, experiments conducted so far have not helped scientists understand how soon it comes. All we know is that if a male copulates with a pair of females every two days, on the 34th day - that is, at the very middle of his adult life - he becomes completely sterile. In nature, males may not be able to copulate often enough—or survive long enough—for this to become a serious problem. Maybe. Or maybe not. It is no coincidence that the females of your species - like many others - prefer young and fresh virgins.
Dear Doctor Tatyana,
My lioness is a nymphomaniac. Every time she is in heat, she demands sex at least every half hour, and this continues for five days and nights. I’m already exhausted, but I don’t want her to know about it. Can you offer me some pills that will help me last longer?
Not a sex machine from the Serengeti
Such tablets exist, but I’m afraid they have not yet been sufficiently tested on lions. And still - shame on you! A big lion should be able to handle a sex marathon like this without whining. I have heard of lions copulating 157 times over 55 hours with two different females. Honestly!
But let's look at the reasons for your female's excessive passion. The problem is that she does have real, clinical sexual mania. These manias are of two types. In the first type, the female requires very active stimulation in order for her to become pregnant. In the second type, the male copulates like crazy, not to satisfy his lady, but to be sure that all the descendants born by her are his. Your lady is a classic first case. Such troubles occur not only in lions: in rats, hamsters, and cactus mice, females also require harsh and prolonged stimulation so that they can become pregnant. However, lionesses have a particularly difficult time in this regard: according to some estimates, less than 1% of all sexual intercourse results in conception. No wonder you have to spend so much time without getting off your partner.
What does such stimulation give? In some species - rabbits, ferrets, domestic cats - eggs simply will not be released into the reproductive tract without proper stimulation. In others - for example, in rats - the eggs are released on their own, but without adequate stimulation, pregnancy will not occur, even if they are fertilized. What about lions? It is generally believed that, like domestic cats, they need stimulation to ovulate. But getting similar information Powerful wild animals come with, um, some dangers, so scientists still aren't sure.
Whatever the mechanism, the task remains the same. Massive stimulation requires immoderation in sex. Excessive wastefulness does not take root in nature unless it provides certain benefits. If some lionesses require less stimulation to become pregnant and this does not have any side effects, the intensity of sex will decrease over time throughout the population. So the question is: why do lionesses have to work so hard to get pregnant?
Perhaps this is due to the structure of lion society. Lionesses live in family groups - prides. The pride is also accompanied by a company of males who protect it from dangers associated with other groups of males. If the males are defeated, a new lion will take over and kill all the cubs he can find. After the death of their children, the lionesses lose their milk and come into estrus again. Thus, the frequent change of males, from the point of view of lionesses, is evil. In this case, excessive sexuality can be a test showing that the chosen male is strong and will be able to protect the pride for at least a couple of years. This assumption is confirmed by the fact that when a pride is just emerging, lionesses become pregnant less often, as if testing their new partners. However, this explains the problem only partly. Even if lionesses have known their partners for a long time, they still require hundreds of sexual acts during estrus.
Perhaps the reason for such excess is the depravity of females? In some animals this does explain type 1 nymphomania. For example, look at hamsters: the more vigorously a male fries his beloved, the less likely she is to look in the direction of her rival. In rats, vigorous sex does not prevent females from becoming entangled with others, but if the first partner puts in enough effort, he is more likely to father the young. And among tufted titmice—small songbirds—females constantly beg males for sex. Anyone who cannot match his girlfriend's appetites quickly becomes a cuckold. For lions, however, the situation is twofold: they are much more difficult to observe than hamsters, rats and tufted tits, so information about the promiscuity of lionesses is based only on individual examples. According to some reports, a lioness during estrus moves away from the pride alone with her partner for several days; according to other information, she changes lovers every day. And although genetic analysis shows that lion cubs in the same litter are rarely the children of different fathers, this tells us almost nothing. If lionesses are like rats (forgive the comparison), the ownership of her cubs by one or another father tells us not so much about her virtue as about the sexual skill of one or another partner.
What conclusion should we incline to? Since an experiment, of course, is impossible, we will try to compare lions with other cats: after all, they are all related, which means that certain types of behavior are most likely based on the same reasons. Unfortunately, the comparison will only confuse us even more: although some felines have sex as wildly as lions, in other aspects of behavior they have nothing in common. For example, nymphomania cannot be explained by the fact that lions live in groups: cats that prefer solitude - leopards and tigers - also copulate like crazy when the female goes into heat. Comparisons with other big cats also tell us nothing. Although some large cats - pumas, leopards, tigers, jaguars - adhere to the same style of sex as lions, cheetahs and Snow leopards behave differently. What's more: The not-so-large sand cat, a little-known species that hunts rodents in the deserts of the Middle East and Central Asia, also has sex like crazy, while other small cats - the bobcat and the tree ocelot - act very differently. At the same time, disappointingly little is known about the tendency of females of these three species to engage in promiscuity. On this moment, I would say that female promiscuity best explains the behavior of lionesses, but an impartial court would say that this position is unproven.
Dear Doctor Tatyana,
I think I'm a freak. I am a long-tailed dancer, and, as expected, I go to all the parties, but evening after evening I am passed over. Guys won't even approach me, let alone flirt with me by offering me dinner. I noticed that all the girls around looked like flying saucers, and only I looked like an ordinary fly. What should I do?
Quasimode of Delaware
Yes, funny incident. For long-tailed dancers (also known as pushers), food and sex go hand in hand. An hour before sunset, males catch a suitable insect - for example, a juicy butterfly - and then find a female who wants to share the prey with them, which she will eat right during sex. Females gather in groups and wait for their gentlemen to arrive. However, unlike many other insects, for dates, pushers prefer not hills and tree stumps, but forest clearings, where the silhouettes of ladies clearly appear against the sky.
Male tuskers are discerning gentlemen, preferring to give prey to the largest females. We don't know exactly why. In your relatives, males choose portly females because they will soon lay eggs, which means there is less chance that the female will have time to meet another during the remaining time. In your case, however, the size does not indicate the approaching moment of laying. However, in most species, from insects to fish, larger females are more fertile, so your appearance can tell you how many eggs you can lay. For this occasion, female long-tailed pushers have come up with an unusual way to emphasize their own size. They have two inflatable sacs on either side of their abdomen, and before going to a party, sitting in the bushes, they are pumped up with air, inflating three to four times. Try it too: then you too will be indistinguishable from a flying saucer.
In many species, females are willing to date males only for offerings. A gentleman who is unable to obtain a gift will be rejected. If the gift turns out to be too insignificant, the partner may be punished by not being allowed to continue sexual intercourse for any long time. This may explain why the jumping spider Pisaura mirabilis- the only spider that gives gifts to partners - spends time wrapping them in silk. The more silk, the more time the partner will spend unwrapping the offering, even if it turns out to be very small. And perhaps the charming packaging will make the female look more condescendingly at the size of the gift.
Different species have different types of such offerings. Gifts often include edible secretions containing proteins and other nutrients. Look at the tropical cockroach Xestoblatta hamata: after sex, the partner with appetite attacks the male’s anal secretion, eating it with appetite, so to speak, straight from the pan. In many species, secretion products are not eaten, but enter the body along with sperm. In moths Utetheisa ornatrix During sexual intercourse, a partner injects his lady with a substance that protects against spiders. From that moment on, the spiders consider her to be so disgusting in taste that if she gets entangled in their web, they immediately throw her out of there along with the threads that bind her. There are also more eccentric options: for example, a beautiful insect with a suitable name- red-bodied wasp moth - during sex, it entangles a partner in a web impregnated with a repellent that drives away spiders. However, not all offerings are so practical. Among the muhans, relatives of the pushers, the male brings the female a large white silk ball, which she plays with during sex.
How more expensive gifts, the more men are concerned about not making a mistake in choosing a partner. In the end, no one will drag just anyone with them to the Ritz! Among the Mormon grasshoppers - wingless relatives of crickets and black-winged grasshoppers - the male finds himself in straitened circumstances after a single date. He gives his partner his secretions, for which he loses a quarter of his mass. We can bet that these guys are quite picky and only offer their gifts to the largest females. Many butterflies have to make the same sacrifices: after one date, the male does not soon gain the ability to again give the lady a worthy gift. It is not surprising that male butterflies are no less picky about who they go to bed with.
However, the pickiness of pusher males is not due to the high cost of gifts. They just have the ability to be demanding of their partners. Females of this species cannot hunt and are completely dependent on males for food. So it's better to puff yourself up to impress them.
To be a man, it's not enough to just take off your pants. Good sex requires strength, especially in those species where the partner can date several males at once. And sperm is by no means cheap. You have to eject a large number of sperm, and you may not be able to do it often. It is bad news. If the female finds you unsuitable, she will not beat around the bush, but will immediately find a replacement for you. Therefore, before you jump into bed with the first girl you come across, remember what, according to legend, the British Lord Chesterfield told his son about sex in the 18th century: “The pleasure is transitory, the position is ridiculous, the price is exorbitant.”
Ultimate is a sport with flying saucers, its Russian name is a tracing-paper from English Ultimate Frisbee. - Approx. scientific ed.
This story wanders from one popular article to another, although scientists have already refuted it. - Approx. scientific ed.
Where the expression “every creature in pairs” (in another translation - “every one”) is used for the first time. It is in the Old Testament that we can read the parable of the Great Flood that engulfed the entire earth (Genesis, chapter 7). Only Noah, the righteous man, and his family are saved. And, of course, animals and birds - a pair of each creature! Moreover, God notifies Noah in advance that a great disaster is coming, and gives him the idea - to create an ark ship to preserve all life on earth. So the Lord again reveals his plan to a person who lives righteously and reveres the laws of God. Everything was told down to the smallest detail: right down to the drawings of the ship, its length, width, height, capacity.
Order and punishment of the Almighty
God also gives the righteous a command: to take on board the ship pairs of “clean” and “unclean” animals in a ratio of seven to two - male and female, as well as seven pairs of “clean” birds of the air and two pairs of “unclean” ones, so that preserve the clan and tribe for the whole earth. After which the Lord poured rain on the earth for forty days and nights in a row! This was punishment for all humanity existing at that time for grave sins before God and before each other.
There's a pair for each creature
Noah did as he was told, gathering various kinds of animals and birds, taking them on board his ship, fortunately the ark turned out to be quite spacious. After the flood, each couple was called upon to revive life in the manifestation in which we now see it around us. This is what happened later. And “a pair of every creature” - the meaning of this expression - has remained unchanged to this day!
How did so many animals fit into the Ark?
Although many atheists insist that such a number of animals (each creature in pairs) could not physically fit into the Ark, there are certainly several answers to this question. Firstly, one should not discount the fact that a work of this kind like the Bible should not be taken literally. In many ways, this book is metaphorical in itself. And secondly, the no less famous Moses (in the same Old Testament) listed not so many genera of “clean” animals. In addition, the inhabitants of the ocean did not fall under these concepts, since they could easily survive on their own in water conditions. Plants were also not taken into account. So to the question of how to fit a pair of each creature in the Ark, the Bible gives a positive, although not acceptable, answer: it is possible!
And another, no less interesting question
Was there a general flood? In the Bible, the expression “the whole earth” is sometimes interpreted as “the whole world known to the Jews.” Thus, having reported a famine in the time of Jacob, Moses claims that he ruled over the whole earth (but it is unlikely that he meant all five parts of the world)! Jews often called the circle of those countries that were known to them “land.” The Flood occurs at the dawn of human history, when the places where people settled were still small and not so extensive. And for the complete “flooding of the world” it was not necessary to flood those areas in which man simply did not yet exist! Accordingly, Noah needed to take into his Ark not all the diverse earthly fauna, but only those inhabitants who lived next to man, who “could be collected in a week” (Genesis, 7).
So Deacon A. Kuraev, for example, in the book “School Theology” says that the miracle consists not so much in the vastness and comprehensiveness of the flood. The main thing is that the person was warned by the Lord, and as a result, it was not the most cunning, the most courageous, the most powerful who was saved, but the most righteous.
Both jokingly and seriously
And the expression “every creature has a pair” today defines the motley, mixed composition of a human group, society, crowd. This phraseological unit, of course, is directly related to the very Ark of Noah, where many seemingly incompatible animals were collected in one place. The expression is used to describe the heterogeneity of persons who differ from each other in their views, tastes, contradictory and gathered in one specific place. There are also all sorts of funny “alterations” and paraphrases of this phrase in free speech. For example, “each pair has a creature” or “each creature has a hara.” Which only confirms the universal popularity of this seemingly ancient expression, but most thoroughly time-tested!
Every creature in pairs
Every creature in pairs
From the Bible. The Old Testament tells about the Flood (Genesis, chapter 7, v. 2-4), in which only the righteous Noah and his family were saved, since God notified him of the impending disaster and gave him the idea to build an ark (ship). And God also gave Noah an order: to preserve life on earth, take on board the ark seven pairs of “clean” animals and two pairs of “unclean” animals: “And take seven of every clean animal, male and female; two each, male and female. And also of the birds of the air in sevens, male and female, to preserve a seed for the whole earth, for after seven days I will cause rain to fall on the earth for forty days and forty nights.”
Used: ironically in relation to a mixed, heterogeneous collection of things or people.
Encyclopedic Dictionary of winged words and expressions. - M.: “Locked-Press”. Vadim Serov. 2003.
Every creature in pairs
This is how they jokingly talk about the mixed, motley composition of a human group, crowd, society. This expression arose on the basis of the biblical myth about the global flood, from which only the pious Noah and his family were saved, since God taught him to build an ark. Noah, at the command of God, took with him seven pairs of “clean” and two pairs of “unclean” animals of all breeds, birds and reptiles to preserve life on earth after the flood (Genesis 6, 19-20; 7, 1-8) .
Dictionary of catch words. Plutex. 2004.
Synonyms:
See what “Every creature comes in pairs” in other dictionaries:
Cm … Synonym dictionary
- (foreign language) about a mixed society (allusion to Noah’s Ark) Wed. The carriage is jam-packed: there are ladies, and military men, and students, and students of all sorts of creatures in pairs. Ant. P. Chekhov. 1st class passenger. Wed. And every kind of livestock... unclean, two by two, male and... ... Michelson's Large Explanatory and Phraseological Dictionary
Every creature in pairs (foreign language) about a mixed society (an allusion to Noah’s Ark). Wed. The carriage is jam-packed: there are ladies, military men, students, and female students of all sorts of creatures in pairs. Ant. P. Chekhov. 1st class passenger. Wed. And all livestock... unclean... ... Michelson's Large Explanatory and Phraseological Dictionary (original spelling)
every creature in pairs- joking. A little bit of everyone (from the biblical story about the universal flood, when God ordered Noah to take a couple of different birds, animals, etc. with him into the ark) ... Dictionary of many expressions
1. Unlock Joking. About the mixed, motley composition of a human crowd, group, society. BTS, 163; ShZF 2001, 49. 2. Psk. ABOUT large quantities who has different pets? SPP 2001, 73. /i> The turnover arose on the basis of the biblical myth of the Flood.... ... Large dictionary of Russian sayings
Every creature in pairs- wing. sl. This is how they jokingly talk about the mixed, motley composition of a human group, crowd, society. This expression arose on the basis of the biblical myth about the global flood, from which only the pious Noah and his family were saved, since God taught... Universal additional practical explanatory dictionary by I. Mostitsky- CREATURE, creatures, female. 1. A living being (the original thing in religious ideas is what was created by God) (book obsolete). “When Jupiter populated the universe and created a tribe of various creatures, then the donkey was born.” Krylov. "Every person is alive... Dictionary Ushakova
Answered by Viktor Belousov, 03/03/2014
Timofey asks:“Every beast, and every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, according to their kinds, came out of the ark.
And Noah built an altar to the Lord and took from every clean animal and
and offered all the clean birds as burnt offerings on the altar.
Book
Noah sacrificed some animals, if each creature had a pair
was, then now that means those animals that Noah sacrificed do not exist?
Peace be with you, Timofey
The answer was written a chapter earlier:
1 And the Lord said to Noah, Enter you and all your family into the ark, for I have seen you righteous before Me in this generation.
2 and take seven of every clean animal, male and female., and from unclean cattle two each, male and female;
3 also of the birds of the air, seven by seven, male and female, to preserve a seed for all the earth,
()
Only “clean” animals were sacrificed (chapter). There were 7 pairs of them in Noah's ark, specifically so that it would be possible to preserve them.
Blessings,
Victor
Read more on the topic “Noah, the Ark and the Flood”:
| 06 Jan |
There's a pair for each creature
– Noach takes with him “a pair of every creature.” What does it mean?
- Every person is small world, and therefore absolutely everything exists in him: inanimate, plant, animal and human nature, which he must reveal within himself. He takes into himself a pair of each creature: a positive and a negative part, a giver and a receiver. He enters the ark in order to begin working with these two lines, two forces of nature: not only with the egoistic one, given to him from birth, but also with the opposite - altruistic. He cannot yet master this, he must only begin to perceive everything correctly, and therefore he is likened to an embryo that arose in the womb of the mother from a drop of seed. This is what entering the ark means: “every creature in pairs” - with two forces.
– Is a drop of seed Noah?
– Yes, this is Noah, this is me, this is the future man, in whom “there is a pair of every creature,” that is, every force with its positive and negative manifestations in our world, the force of receiving and bestowing. And so gradually, working with these forces, he grows, surrounded, guided by the influence of the Creator, maintaining a state of balance between the two forces. He grows himself along the middle line between the two forces, abolishing his egoism, rising precisely so as to be in their symbiosis.
Thus, he must go through the first nine Sefirot. There are ten of them in total, the tenth is me. Nine Sefirot are nine possibilities for my influence on the world. When I receive them all, I am born - I come out of the ark as a little man, just as a fetus comes out of its mother's womb.
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