Ain't Love Grand!: Earthworms to Elephant Seals

Chicago Shorts

by Marty Crump, Alan Crump (Illustrator)

The natural world is filled with diverse—not to mention quirky and odd—animal behaviors. Consider the male praying mantis that continues to mate after being beheaded; the insects, insects, and birds that offer gifts of food in return for sex; the male hip-pocket frog that carries his own tadpoles; the baby spiders that dine on their mother; or the starfish that sheds an arm or two to escape a predator’s grasp. In Ain’t Love Grand, Marty Crump—a tropical field biologist well known for her work with the reproductive behavior of amphibians—examines the bizarre conduct of animals as they mate, parent, feed, defend themselves, and communicate. More importantly, Crump points out that diverse and unrelated animals often share seemingly erratic behaviors—evidence, Crump argues, that these natural histories, though outwardly weird, are actually successful ways of living.

64 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 18, 2013

About the author

Marty Crump is a behavioral ecologist who works with tropical amphibians in the areas of parental care, reproduction, territoriality, cannibalism, and tadpole ecology. She has published several books on her research and experiences in tropical areas such as Costa Rica, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. One of these books, In Search of the Golden Frog (University of Chicago Press, 2000) chronicles her unique experiences in Costa Rica's Monteverde Cloudforest, where she collected data on the now extinct Golden Toad highlighted in this module. She acted as a mentor to the authors of this module, since her research is invaluable when profiling the Golden Toad species. Marty received her Doctorate degree from the University of Kansas in 1974 and is currently an adjunct professor at Northern Arizona University.

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice overview about how lesser known animals reproduce.