Sex and the Primordial Ooze

摘要

Reproduction is without a doubt one of the most delightful parts of being a vertebrate. Unlike arthropods, whose mating rituals can range from seemingly perverse acts culminating in the death of the male (think praying mantises and certain spiders) to traumatic rape and insemination (think bed bugs), for us more civilized backboned animals, mating is mostly an act of great pleasure following courtship and foreplay. Without sex and the subsequent mingling of two individuals' genetic material, gene pool transformation would not occur. Sex is therefore central to evolutionary change.