"Each creature - a pair." Chapter from a book

Where is the first use of the expression "each creature in pairs" (in another translation - "every one"). It is in the Old Testament that we can read the parable of the Flood that swept the whole 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 prompts him with the idea - to create an ark ship to save all life on earth. Thus, the Lord again reveals his plan to a person who lives righteously and respects the laws of God. Everything was told to the smallest detail: down to the drawings of the ship, its length, width, height, capacity.

Command and punishment of the Almighty

God also gives the righteous man an order: 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 heavenly “clean” birds and two pairs of “unclean” ones, so that preserve the clan and tribe for the whole earth. After that, the Lord poured rain on the earth for forty days and nights in a row! It was a punishment for all mankind existing at that time for grave sins before God and before each other.

Pair of each creature

Noah did as he was told, collecting various kinds of animals and birds, taking them on board his ship, since the ark turned out to be quite roomy. After the flood, each couple was called to revive life in the manifestation in which we now observe it around. And so it happened afterwards. And "each creature in pairs" - the meaning of this expression - has remained unchanged to this day!

How did so many animals fit into the Ark?

While many atheists insist that so many animals (two of each) could not physically fit on the Ark, there are certainly multiple answers to this question. First, it should not be discounted that a work 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 well 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 for everyone: 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 known (to the Jews) world." Thus, in reporting on the 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)! The Jews often called the land the circle of those countries that they knew. The Flood occurs at the dawn of human history, when the places of human settlement were still small, not so extensive. And for the complete "flooding of the world" it was not necessary to flood those areas in which there was simply no man yet! Accordingly, Noah had to take into his Ark not all the diverse terrestrial 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, not the most cunning, the most courageous, the strongest was saved, but the most righteous.

Both jokingly and seriously

And the expression “each creature in pairs” today defines the motley, mixed composition of a human group, society, crowd. This phraseological unit, of course, is directly related to the same Noah's Ark, where many incompatible, at first glance, 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 in free speech all sorts of funny "alterations" and paraphrases of this phrase. 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!

I usually get asked a lot of questions related to my work. Many of them are able to amaze even the most sophisticated imagination. However, the most frequently asked question not so unusual: why did I become an expert on sex? The answer is simple: I decided to devote my life to the study of sex, realizing that there is nothing in the world more interesting, more important - and more difficult.

If not for sex, many of the beautiful colors of nature simply would not exist. Plants wouldn't bloom, birds wouldn't sing, deer wouldn't grow spreading antlers, hearts wouldn't beat so fast. However, if you asked representatives different types what is sex, they would answer you differently. Humans and many other beings would say that this is copulation. Frogs and most fish would answer that it is the throwing of eggs and sperm in a single shudder of male and female. Scorpions, centipedes, salamanders would tell you that sex is a portion of sperm left on the ground, which the female then sits on and takes it into her reproductive tract. The sea urchin believes that sex is throwing eggs and sperm into the sea in the hope that they will somehow find each other in the waves. And for flowering plants to have sex means to trust their pollen to the wind and insects that will take it to a flowering lady of the same species.

From those who want to succeed, each of these methods requires a variety of traits. A flower that wants to acquire the laurels of Lothario's red tape and pollinate with its pollen as many "ladies" of its kind as possible must be attractive not to these latter, but to bees. Other creatures have to dress up in gaudy, flashy outfits, whether they are amazing feathers or frivolous fins, sing or dance for hours, demonstrate incredible dexterity, build and rebuild nests and holes over and over again. In other words, they have to spend a lot of energy to shout: “Choose me, me, me-a-a-a!” And what is all this for?

In fact, all these tricks are just a means to an end, the final sexual act that every being strives for is the mixing of genes and the creation of a new being with its own genetic code. To the poor fellow sitting in the dating bar, mixing genes may not seem like a goal worth the effort. However, by and large, this is what matters most. To understand why this is so, let's take a step back and look at how evolution works.

Most of us, squeezed in the grip of everyday hustle and bustle, find it difficult to understand what the purpose of life is. But from the point of view of evolution, the goals of life are clear and understandable: survival and reproduction. If you don't reach any of them, you will take your genes with you to the grave. If you succeed in both, pass them on to your children. At the same time - life is life - some creatures are more successful than others in achieving these goals. If everyone around had the same set of genes, success in survival and reproduction would depend not on the genetic code, but on luck. However, we all have different genes. And so, if a certain gene provides an individual with advantages in terms of survival and reproduction, it will be passed on to offspring.

This simple process, discovered by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the 19th century, underlies the mechanisms of evolution. It's called natural selection. Sometimes it happens quickly and is easy to notice. Suppose a new poison appears in nature - for example, an antibiotic or an insecticide. Let's also assume that survival when faced with this poison depends on a certain gene. Those who do not have it will die, their genes will be thrown out of the population. In the very last resort no one will have a “survival gene”, and then everyone will die and the whole population will disappear. However, most likely, some of its members will be lucky carriers of the gene that resists poison. Since only they will be able to survive and produce offspring, in the next generations the genetic code of the entire population will change and everyone will acquire resistance to the corresponding poison.

Thus, genetic changes turn out to be critically important: without them, there is no evolution. But where do they come from? From two main sources: mutations - and sex. Mutations, or random changes in genetic information, are the most primitive way. Mutations occur due to failures in the cellular mechanism of genetic copying. Since copying is never perfect, mistakes are inevitable - which is great. Whereas sex produces a new combination of already existing genes, mutations create completely new genes - the raw material for evolution. Without mutations, evolution will inevitably stop.

However, mutations by themselves are not enough. From time to time different kinds of beings try to give up sex and reproduce in other ways. In these cases, genetic differences between parents and children depend only on mutations. At first, organisms that have given up sex feel great. But their prosperity is fleeting. For some mysterious reason, not having sex always leads to the rapid extinction of the species. So without sex you are doomed.

This is not to say that sex simplifies life. It doesn't matter how good your survival skills are - you may be perfect at hiding from predators, have a better sense of smell to find food, or be immune to all diseases - none of this makes sense if you can't find, hit and seduce a partner. To make matters worse, success in seduction often gets in the way of survival. If you are a bird, a huge tail can make you an attractive male to a whole flock of females, but it can also doom you to the role of a cat's dinner. There is more bad news: the battle for a partner can sometimes be bloody fierce.

Here is the conclusion that follows from all of the above: the need to find and seduce a partner is one of the most powerful driving forces of evolution. Perhaps nothing else can create such a delightful variety of techniques and strategies, such an amazing combination of forms and modes of behavior. Compared to them, the techniques for avoiding predators seem predictable and limited. They usually involve following one or more of the following rules: move in groups, move quickly, blend in with the surroundings, look intimidating, acquire a shell or sharp spikes, taste disgusting. As for the tricks that allow you to seduce a partner, the variety here is limitless. That's why people ask so many questions about it.

That is why I have dedicated my life to answering these questions. In the pages of this book, I have selected examples of letters that I received for last years. I have tried to focus on those that reflect the aspirations of everyone - concerning promiscuity, infidelity. Homosexuality. I have grouped questions on certain topics into chapters, each of which contains brief digression to the topic, conclusions and my own advice.

The chapters, in turn, are divided into three thematic parts. In the first part of "Let's Unleash the Whores of War," I explain why men's and women's expectations about gender and life in general are so different, and talk about the consequences of these differences. In the second part - "The Evolution of Vice" - I deal with situations in which contradictions escalate, at times leading to disastrous results, including sexual violence and cannibalism. The finale of this part speaks of the most rare and far from the norm of evolutionary phenomena: monogamy.

In the last part, we go even further: it is called "Are men needed?". In it, I touch on a variety of issues related to the evolution of sexes and sex. In trying to understand why sex is so important to the long-term success of evolution, last chapter In this part, I'm talking about a single organism that manages to do without it for millions and millions of years.

Every creature in pairs

Every creature in pairs
From the Bible. The Old Testament tells about the Flood (Genesis, ch. 7, st. 2-4), in which only the righteous Noah and his family were saved, since God informed him of the impending disaster and gave him the idea to build an ark (ship). And God also gave Noah an order: to save life on earth, to take on board the ark seven pairs of “clean” animals and two pairs of “unclean” animals: two each, male and female. And seven of the birds of the sky, male and female, to keep a seed for the whole earth, for in seven days I will rain 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.: "Lokid-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 of the global flood, from which only one pious Noah and his family escaped, 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" of all breeds of animals, birds and reptiles to save life on earth after the flood (Genesis 6, 19-20; 7, 1-8) .

Dictionary of winged words. Plutex. 2004

See what "Every creature in pairs" is in other dictionaries:

Cm … Synonym dictionary

- (inosk.) about a mixed society (a hint of Noah's ark) Cf. The car is packed: there are ladies, and military men, and students, and female students of every creature in pairs. Ant. P. Chekhov. 1st class passenger. Wed And every livestock... unclean two by two, male and... ... Michelson's Big Explanatory Phraseological Dictionary

Every creature in pairs (inosk.) about a mixed society (a hint of Noah's ark). Wed The car is packed full: there are ladies, and military men, and students, and female students of every creature in pairs. Ant. P. Chekhov. 1st class passenger. Wed And all cattle... unclean... ... Michelson's Big Explanatory Phraseological Dictionary (original spelling)

every creature in pairs- joke. A little bit of everyone (from the biblical story about the universal flood, when God told Noah to take a couple of different birds, animals, etc. with him to the ark) ... Dictionary of many expressions

1. Unfold Shuttle. About the mixed, motley composition of the human crowd, group, society. BTS, 163; ShZF 2001, 49. 2. Psk. About a large number of different pets who l. SPP 2001, 73. /i> The turnover arose on the basis of the biblical myth of the global flood. ... ... Big Dictionary 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 of the global flood, from which only one pious Noah and his family escaped, since God taught ... Universal additional practical explanatory dictionary by I. Mostitsky- CREATURE, creatures, wives. 1. A living being (originally in religious ideas, what was created by God) (bookish obsolete). “When Jupiter inhabited the universe and started a tribe of various creatures, then the donkey also came into the world.” Krylov. "Every person is alive... Dictionary Ushakov

Timothy asks:“All the beasts, and all the creeping things, and all the birds, everything that moves on the earth, after their generations, came out of the ark.
And Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took from every clean animal and from
all the clean birds, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
Book
Noah sacrificed some animals, if each creature had a pair
was, then, now does not exist those animals that Noah sacrificed?

Peace be with you, Timothy

The answer is written a chapter earlier:

1 And the Lord said unto Noah, Enter thou and all thy family into the ark, for I have seen thee righteous before me in this generation;
2 and every clean livestock you shall take by seven, male and female, and from the unclean cattle, two each, male and female;
3 also seven of the birds of the air, male and female, to keep a family for all the earth,
()

Only "clean" animals were sacrificed (chap.). There were 7 pairs of them in Noah's ark, especially to be able to save them.

Blessings
Victor

Read more on Noah, the Ark and the Flood:

Being a man is not easy. Especially if you need to produce spermatozoa twenty times your own height. Or give 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 worried about my husband. He runs to the doctor all the time because he thinks he has too few sperm and we won't be able to have children. But there are eight billion sperm in his ejaculate each time, and I don't think that's a lot. Tell me, does he really have a problem or is he just nervous?

Perplexed from the End of the World

You say he runs to the doctor? I would say that your partner is not a hypochondriac, but a liar, and his visits to the doctor are a disguised way to follow someone on the side. Australian warblers are notorious for their abundance of extramarital affairs. Let me give you some advice. You can easily guess when the Australian warbler is going on a date: then he carries a pink petal in his beak as a gift to his mistress. Why pink? Because it looks very advantageous when the warbler fluffs iridescent blue feathers on her cheeks.

A much more important question - why does a bird smaller than my palm need to give out more than eight billion spermatozoa in the ejaculate every time? There are only about 180 million of them in a serving 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 spermatozoa is in direct proportion to how difficult it is for them to reach the egg. Let's say if you were a tree, then the amount of pollen you produce would depend on the method of pollination. Let's take fig trees as an example. Some of them are pollinators of thrifty wasps that tirelessly collect and distribute pollen - these specimens can spend it sparingly. Others get lazy wasps, not particularly bothering to fly around the flowers: these figs willy-nilly have to be wasteful. So in species like us or you, sperm counts are supposed to go down, right?

Not necessary. In some species - for example, fish - partners meet, but instead of having sex, they throw sperm and eggs into the sea. At the same time, the number of spermatozoa in them turns out to be slightly more than the number of eggs. But if you look at birds, mammals, and other species that practice sexual intercourse, the picture is completely different. We will see that the maximum number of spermatozoa is produced by males of those species in which the females are drumroll, please! - differ in debauchery.

Experts believe that there are two reasons why males of species in which females jump from one lover to another develop a large number of spermatozoa. The first is what biologists call "sperm competition": indeed, sperm from different partners compete with each other for the right to fertilize an egg. And since this competitive struggle takes place on the principle of a lottery - the more tickets you buy, the higher the chance of winning, then the male who managed to develop the maximum number of spermatozoa has the highest chance of fertilization. And since the number of spermatozoa is determined genetically, over time, the constant success of males with their the maximum number will lead to an increase in the number of spermatozoa in all males of the population. With this in mind, males, constantly involved in sperm competition, usually also testicles - factories for the production of spermatozoa - are larger relative to body size. Indeed, experiments with yellow dung flies—hairy flies that bond and lay their eggs on fresh cowpats—have shown that testicle size has been increasing in the course of sperm competition for ten generations.

Taking the argument to its logical conclusion, it turns out that males that do not have to participate in sperm competition produce exactly as many spermatozoa as are necessary to fertilize each egg. Alas, such an enviable share goes to very few guys. Among them are seahorses and their close relatives - sea needles (the sea needle looks like a horse that has been straightened and given a streamlined shape). These males are famous for their pregnancy. As a rule, females lay their eggs in the male's brood chamber, where he fertilizes them, so there is no risk that his spermatozoa will collide with others belonging to a competitor. No one counted the number of spermatozoa in the ejaculate of most species of seahorses, but this procedure was subjected to a Japanese needle fish that lives in thickets of algae off the coast of Japan. As expected, their numbers were 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 off on the journey, only a few reach the goal. Fantastic high level The death of spermatozoa was 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 the 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 gently care for and help the spermatozoa achieve their goal, but instead, danger and betrayal lie in wait for them at every step. Females may digest the sperm, eject it, or simply collect and dispose of it. Even in those species whose females are able to store sperm for many years, they retain only a small number of spermatozoa. For example, a queen bee, mating with 17 partners, will receive from them about 102 million spermatozoa - 6 million from each, but will retain only 5.3 million, necessary for the fertilization of eggs. In those species that do not retain spermatozoa, their path does resemble a bloody battle.

For example, in humans, spermatozoa begin their odyssey in acidic environment vagina. But acid is detrimental to sperm (which is why a strategically placed slice of lemon is a fairly effective, albeit very imperfect, contraceptive). Only 10% of spermatozoa will be able to break through this barrier and continue on their way. Next, they have to overcome the cervix - a barrier covered with mucus, which will miss, at best, 10% of travelers. At the same time, mucus is only one of the threats waiting for spermatozoa in the neck. At the first hint of sperm, white blood cells - the soldiers of the immune system - fill the cervix and uterine cavity, destroying all strangers they can find. In rabbits, after an hour of sex, a huge army of white blood cells gathers in the cervix. In the representatives of mankind, this armada begins to accumulate already fifteen minutes after the onset of sexual intercourse, and after four hours it already has about a billion fighters. This is why by the time the spermatozoa reach the fallopian tubes - the place where an egg ready for fertilization can be - 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 more likely to be infertile.

Measuring the level of hostility in the environment is much more difficult than counting sperm, so we do not know how much it changes in various kinds or in different representatives of the same species. Personally, I suggest that the increased hostility of the reproductive system to sperm is a female evolutionary response to an increase in the number of sperm in men. Thus, men who have more of them get an advantage. In rabbits, for example, the number of sperm that reach each of the intermediate points in the reproductive tract depends on how many there were at the start. But why is such an aggressive 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 of the possible answers: in this way a woman ensures that the egg is fertilized by the highest quality sperm. Another option - aggressiveness initially served as protection against possible infections. The man, in turn, always sought to break through the lines of defense. Indeed, the ejaculate of humans and other mammals contains substances that suppress the female immune system. To discourage attempts to suppress the immune system, female body, perhaps began to look for ways to strengthen his immune defenses. Thus, the endless evolutionary cycle of actions and reactions began to work 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 direct in their sexual behavior, and females, along with a permanent partner, as a rule, also have a permanent lover. Thus, the competition of sperm among them is quite high. Often, not a single chick from the nest is the biological offspring of the same father who carefully nurtures them. Perhaps you, while your husband is walking somewhere on the side, allow yourself little pranks?

Dear Doctor Tatyana!

I found out that it takes me three weeks to produce a single sperm cell. 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?

Ohio Sperm Waiting

Alas, the market for artificial tails for sperm does not exist in nature, so you have to try yourself. You're right, it's not fair. Why is a fruit fly three millimeters long - less than the dash that precedes this phrase - forced to produce a spermatozoon 58 millimeters long? A person is much larger than you, but manages with a thousand times smaller tailed cells. If a man had to comply with your standards, his spermatozoon would be the length of a blue whale. It would be interesting to see!

Unlike the evolutionary changes in the number of spermatozoa, the evolution of their size and shape has been studied very little. We can only say with certainty that spermatozoa are simpler and smaller if fertilization occurs outside the body of the female.

First, let's touch on the shape of spermatozoa. 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 spermatozoa, which move exclusively in tandem. American possums, water beetles, centipedes, domestic silverfish, and some marine mollusks can boast of such. Hook-shaped spermatozoa are also a very fashionable thing. Koalas, rodents, crickets - all of them have sperm ends in hooks. Insectless creatures - small creatures related to insects - became the world's first players in "Ultimate": their spermatozoa are shaped like disks. In lobsters, they look like fireworks in the form of a "fiery wheel", and in some earthen snails they look like a corkscrew. In termites, spermatozoa are adorned with the likeness of a 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 intended destination. After an unusually long act of love, a giant octopus, for example, ejects a spermatophore that looks like a bomb more than a meter long, inside which about 10 billion spermatozoa are packed, and it explodes in the reproductive tract of the female.

Since all this variety of forms developed independently in different species, one should think about what benefits it brings. For example, hooks could help tadpoles to get through reproductive system females, however, as far as I know, no one has yet been able to observe such an effect. What is the possible benefit of other forms? Here your guesses will be no worse than mine. However, as far as we know, the shape of the spermatozoa has nothing to do with female debauchery. But the size of the tadpoles, perhaps, have the most direct relation to it. For example, in nematodes, large spermatozoa are more likely to be able 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, in root mites - agricultural pests - a male with large spermatozoa is more likely to achieve fertilization than one with smaller spermatozoa. This is indeed general rule: males of those species in which females are promiscuous, not only produce more sperm, but also produce larger spermatozoa. Alas, both indicators cannot increase indefinitely: at some point, the production of large spermatozoa leads to the fact that their number decreases. Therefore, in most species, the desire to increase the number of male germ 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 as large spermatozoa as possible. In the Huge Tadpole Producers Hall of Fame, we can meet a wide variety of representatives of the animal world. And although you Drosophila bifurca, - a recognized champion, in recent years, featherfly beetles, smoothies, ostracods (small crustaceans similar to beans with legs), ticks, Australian earth snails Hedleyella falconeri, decorated frogs and a variety of fruit flies have captured the palm. Ostracod spermatozoa are said to be able to fight each other, smearing rivals into a cake, although, as far as I know, no one has yet observed this battle in the laboratory.

Alas, giant spermatozoa actually have only one advantage: their appearance can surprise onlookers to death. Personally, I do not know why some species need such huge sex cells. It can be said for sure that the size of spermatozoa does not correlate in any way with the size of the egg fertilized by her, as previously assumed. Scientists don't look at eggs as closely as they do sperm (in species where fertilization takes place inside a female, sperm is simply easier to study), but other species of fruit flies lay larger eggs than you do, but they have male germ cells. less. Another suggestion is that the giant sperm is a gift to the female that helps her provide eggs. necessary nutrition. However, in many species, only a small part of the huge spermatozoon gets inside the egg, so this explanation also does not seem convincing to me. Could a giant male reproductive cell block a female's reproductive tract by acting as a chastity belt? In featherwing beetles, this is possible: the male spermatozoon almost completely clogs the entire allotted volume, and there is simply no room for the sperm of competitors. But this explanation does not hold true for ostracods, whose females have an amazing system for storing sperm, which is stored in secluded nooks and crannies not directly connected with the place of production of eggs. To get to the egg and fertilize it, the ostracod's sperm will have to leave the body of the female and travel a long way through the open air, reaching another entrance. And your next of kin Drosophila hydei(sperm length - 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 reason for the appearance of the colossal size of spermatozoa. In the end, if you figure out what price each species has to pay for the production of huge germ cells, it turns out that it is not so high. While your distant cousin Drosophila melanogaster(sperm length - 1.91 mm) can copulate within a few hours after getting out of the cocoon, you have to wait at least 17 days - that's how much you need to grow your giants. But it's not that much. If no misfortune befalls you, you can live for six months - enough long term for a fruit fly, so waiting for the loss of virginity for some 17 days 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 spermatozoa, you can easily get by with a few selected specimens.

Dear Doctor Tatyana,

I am an angry fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. When I was still a larva, I was told that sperm was worth nothing: it was easy to produce and easy to waste. So I started spending as soon as I reached maturity. I spent it with all my might. But it turns out that I was deceived: I'm still in the prime of my life, and the supply of spermatozoa has already dried up, all the females fly by with contempt. Who can I blame for my tragedy?

Withered from London

It would be good 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 cannot help but feel a certain self-satisfied satisfaction. Wow, Drosophila melanogaster, Bateman's experimental organism, - and suddenly such problems!

Let me reiterate once again. Bateman believed that since one sperm costs 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 - only by the number of seduced females. By this logic, it is assumed that sperm can be used for any purpose almost indefinitely, with each egg having 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 semen into the water. Some species do the same with caviar. This means that the spermatozoa 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 at the same time release sperm in an amazing way - like the finalists of the 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 just as limited in time. Pollinators - living organisms that carry pollen, such as bees - are very unreliable, they can eat pollen instead of delivering it to female flowers, so the latter often do not have enough of it. The cheeky Arizema trifoliate flower produces ten times as many seeds when pollinated by scientists rather than insects. Such difficulties are characteristic of organisms that have to rely on ocean currents, on 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 that the female produces on a given day. Success will be greater than large quantity sperm can be discarded by the male, so the fish quickly realize that they can use their energy more efficiently if they produce more sperm, instead of looking for more and more partners. Not surprisingly, female lemon tetras prefer cavaliers who don't get mixed up with others in front of them. Among blue-headed wrasses, Atlantic fish that live near coral reefs, the largest males use their sperm very sparingly, throwing it sparingly into the sea, and often at a greater depth than is convenient for females.

The main difficulty, of course, is that males cannot produce one sperm for each egg. No, one female egg needs 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 with black and white stripes, mating three times in three hours will use up his entire supply of sperm and take five days to recover. Male blue crab recovery takes 15 days. Even sheep, which have a sperm reserve of 95 ejaculations (for comparison: a person has enough for one and a half), dry up after some time: after six days of intercourse, the number of spermatozoa in a sheep’s ejaculate drops from more than 10 billion to less than 50 million, after which he is unable to fertilize the 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 busy with anything: they just bask in the sun and produce sperm. This is the way to burn extra calories.

But the surest proof that the amount of sperm is limited is given by hermaphrodites - for example, slugs and snails - combining male and female essences. According to the theory of unlimited sperm, hermaphrodites will use up all the eggs before they run out of sperm and, given the choice, will prefer to remain in the role of males. However, this does not happen in most species.

Let's take, for example, Caenorhabditis elegans, the tiny transparent roundworm so beloved by geneticists. It differs from most hermaphrodites as its individuals come in two sexes: males and hermaphrodites. There are usually two ways for hermaphrodites to have sex. It can be bidirectional, when both individuals inseminate each other at the same time, or unidirectional, when during sexual intercourse one individual plays the role of a male and the other a female. At Caenorhabditis elegans hermaphrodites cannot have sexual intercourse, however, since each of them produces both eggs and sperm, they can fertilize themselves (while males, of course, only produce sperm). If a 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 individuals Caenorhabditis elegans continue to lay unfertilized eggs, of which there are about a hundred more.

However, perhaps Caenorhabditis elegans - a special case. Usually, 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 more advanced in age they acquire offspring. But at the same time, too much delay is fraught with problems: as a worm, you will leave more descendants the sooner you get down to business.

Nevertheless Caenorhabditis elegans- not the only hermaphrodite capable of spending all his sperm. Its amount is limited in sea cucumbers, water snails, and marine flatworms (all of these organisms seem similar friend but they are only distantly related. Their appearance and lifestyle evolved independently). Water 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 the sea cucumbers Navanax inermis Those who prefer one-way sex usually act as females, and if the amount of sperm was unlimited, they should do the opposite.

If you still doubt that the role of the male is very expensive, look at banana slugs - huge yellow slugs that live in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. These hermaphrodites engage in one-way sex, and each of them gets a chance to be a male only once, regardless of the amount of sperm produced. These creatures have gigantic, intricate penises that often get stuck during sex, and therefore, after mating is over, the slug itself or its “partner” usually gnaws 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 sterility caused by sex. The first is temporary: after each date, the male should rest for a day in order to restore his reserves. The second type is permanent. Unfortunately, experiments carried out so far have not helped scientists understand how soon it comes. We only know that if a male copulates with a pair of females every two days, on the 34th day - that is, in the very middle of his adult life - he becomes completely sterile. Perhaps in nature males don't copulate so often - or live long enough - for this to become a serious problem. Maybe. Or maybe not. It is no coincidence that females of your species - like many others - prefer young and fresh virgins.

Dear Doctor Tatyana,

My lioness is a nymphomaniac. Every time she goes into heat, she demands sex at least every half an hour, and this goes on for five days and nights. I'm already exhausted, but I don't want her to know about it. Can you suggest me some pills to help me last longer?

Not a sex machine from the Serengeti

Such pills exist, but on lions, I'm afraid they have not yet been sufficiently tested. And anyway - be ashamed! A big lion should endure such a sex marathon without whining. I have heard of lions mating 157 times in 55 hours with two different females. Honestly!

But let's look at the reasons for the exorbitant passion of your female. The problem is that she really has a real, clinical sexual mania. These manias are of two kinds. 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 offspring born by her are his. Your lady is a classic first case. Such troubles are not only found in lions: in rats, hamsters, cactus mice, females also require harsh and prolonged stimulation so that they can become pregnant. However, it is especially difficult for lionesses in this regard: according to some estimates, less than 1% of all sexual acts lead to conception. No wonder you have to spend so much time without getting off your partner.

What gives such stimulation? In some species - rabbits, ferrets, domestic cats - eggs without proper stimulation simply will not enter the reproductive tract. In others, such as rats, the eggs are ejected by themselves, but without adequate stimulation, pregnancy will not occur, even if they are fertilized. What about lions? It is generally believed that they, like domestic cats, need stimulation in order to ovulate. But getting this kind of information about powerful wild animals comes 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 extravagance in nature does not take root if it does not provide certain advantages. If some lionesses require less stimulation for pregnancy and this does not have any side effects, the intensity of sex will decrease over time in the entire population. So the question is: why do lionesses have to work so hard to get pregnant?

Perhaps this is due to the structure of the lion society. Lionesses live in family groups - prides. The pride is also accompanied by a company of males who protect it from the dangers associated with other groups of males. If the males fail, a new lion will take over and kill all the cubs it can find. After the death of the children, the lionesses lose milk and estrus begins 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 supported by the fact that when the pride is just taking shape, lionesses become pregnant less often, as if testing their new partners. However, this only partly explains the problem. Even if lionesses have known their partners for a long time, they still need hundreds of sexual acts in estrus.

Perhaps the reason for such immoderation is the depravity of females? In some animals this does indeed explain the first type of nymphomania. For example, look at hamsters: the more vigorously the male roasts his beloved, the less likely it is that she will look in the direction of the rival. In rats, vigorous sex does not prevent females from mingling with others, however, if the first partner puts in enough effort, he is more likely to father the cubs. And in crested tits - small songbirds - females constantly beg males for sex. The one who cannot match his girlfriend's appetites becomes a cuckold very quickly. In lions, however, the situation is twofold: they are much more difficult to observe than hamsters, rats and crested tits, so information about the promiscuity of lionesses is based only on individual examples. According to some reports, during estrus, a lioness moves away from the pride together with a partner for several days; according to other information, she changes lovers daily. 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 look like rats (sorry for the comparison), the belonging of her cubs to one or another father tells us not so much about her virtue, but about the sexual art of this or that partner.

To what conclusion shall we incline? Since the experiment, of course, is impossible, we will try to compare lions with other felines: after all, they are all relatives, which means that the same reasons are likely to underlie certain types of behavior. Alas, the comparison will only confuse us further: although some felines have sex as unrestrainedly as lions, there is nothing in common between them in other aspects of behavior. For example, nymphomania cannot be explained by the fact that lions live in groups: felines that prefer loneliness - leopards and tigers - also copulate like crazy when the female starts estrus. Comparison with other big cats also does not give us anything. Although some big cats - cougars, leopards, tigers, jaguars - have the same style of sex as lions, cheetahs and Snow leopards behave differently. What's more, the not-so-big sand cat, a little-known species that preys on rodents in the deserts of the Middle East and Central Asia, also has sex like crazy, while other small felines - the red lynx and the tree ocelot - behave very differently. At the same time, offensively little is known about the propensity of females of these three species to promiscuity. On this moment, I would say that the promiscuity of females best explains the behavior of lionesses, but an impartial court would say that this position has not been proven in any way.

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 don't even come up to me, let alone flirt by offering me dinner. I noticed that all the girls around looked like flying saucers, and only I was like an ordinary fly. What should I do?

Quasimodo from Delaware

Yes, funny case. In long-tailed dancers (in other words pushers), food and sex go hand in hand. An hour before sunset, males catch a suitable insect - for example, a succulent butterfly - after which they find a female who wants to share prey with them, which she will eat right during sex. Females gather in groups and wait for cavaliers to arrive. However, unlike many other insects, pushers prefer not hills and tree stumps for dates, but forest clearings, where the silhouettes of ladies clearly loom against the sky.

Pusher males are demanding cavaliers, preferring to give prey to the largest females. We don't know exactly why. In your relatives, males choose burly females, because those will soon be laying eggs, which means there is less chance that the female will have time to meet another in the remaining time. In your case, however, the size does not indicate the approaching moment of masonry. However, in most species, from insects to fish, large females are more fertile, so your appearance can tell you how many eggs you can lay. For the sake of such an occasion, female long-tailed pushers came up with an unusual way to emphasize their own size. They have two inflatable pouches on either side of the abdomen, and before going to a party, sitting in the bushes, they are inflated with air, inflating three to four times. Try it yourself: then you, too, will be indistinguishable from a flying saucer.

In many species, females are willing to meet males only for offerings. A gentleman who is not able to get a gift will be rejected. If the present turns out to be too insignificant, the partner can be punished by not allowing the sexual intercourse to continue for any long time. This may explain why the jumping spider Pisaura mirabilis- the only spider that makes 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 insignificant. And perhaps the charming packaging will make the female look more indulgently at the size of the gift.

Different types of such offerings are very different. Often, edible secretions containing proteins and other nutrients. Look at the tropical cockroach Xestoblatta hamata: after sex, the partner with appetite pounces on the anal secret of the male, eating it with appetite, so to speak, right from the pan. In many species, secretion products are not eaten, but enter the body along with sperm. Moths Utetheisa ornatrix partner during intercourse injects his lady with a substance that protects against spiders. From that moment on, the spiders consider her so disgusting in taste that, if she gets tangled 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 - a red-bodied wasp moth - during sex entangles a partner with a web soaked in a repellent that drives away spiders. However, not all offerings are so practical. Among Muhans, relatives of pushers, the male brings a large white silk ball to the female, with which she plays during sex.

The more expensive the gifts, the more men are concerned about making the right choice of partner. After all, no one will drag anyone with them to the Ritz! Among the Mormon grasshoppers - the wingless relatives of the crickets and the winged grasshoppers - the male finds himself in cramped 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 very picky and offer their gifts only to the largest females. Many butterflies have to make the same sacrifices: after one date, the male does not soon get the ability to again make a worthy gift to the lady. Not surprisingly, male butterflies are just as picky about who they go to bed with.

However, the legibility of pusher males is not due to the high cost of gifts. They just have the opportunity to be demanding of their partners. The females of this species cannot hunt and are completely dependent on the males for food. So it's better to bloat properly to impress them.

To be a man, it's not enough just to take off your pants. Good sex requires strength, especially in those species where a partner can meet several males at once. And sperm is by no means cheap. You have to throw away a large amount of sperm, and besides, you may not be able to do it often. It is bad news. If the female considers 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 meet, remember what, according to legend, the British Lord Chesterfield told his son about sex in the 18th century: “The pleasure is transient, the position is ridiculous, the price is exorbitant.”

Ultimate - a sport with flying saucers, its Russian name is tracing paper from English Ultimate Frisbee. - Approx. scientific ed.

This tale wanders from one popular article to another, although scientists have already refuted it. - Approx. scientific ed.