Sex on Six Legs: The Social Lives of Bugs
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Hour 2
If you can look past the hard exoskeleton, the antennae and the six legs, bugs and people share some surprising similarities. Although they have a brain the size of a poppy seed, insects have developed many of the same complex behaviors found in humans – learning, language, personality, and good child-rearing. That’s one of the messages in MARLENE ZUK’s new book, Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love, and Language from the Insect World. Zuk, a biologist at University of California, Riverside, tells Marty about the amazing social lives of bugs, and about parasitic wasps, blood-sucking spiders and enslaving ants.
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[audio: 082411_110630.mp3]
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