Episode 01: Naughty by Nature: Sex in the Animal Kingdom ft. Anastasia Shavrova, Ph.D.

Apr 16

In the exciting debut episode of "The Science of Life," Dr. Raven Baxter kicks off an exhilarating journey into the heart of life sciences, intersecting with the raw truths of social sciences. This episode features a fascinating conversation with Dr. Anastasia Shavrova, a trailblazer in the study of sex evolution and sexual conflicts among animals. Dr. Anastasia shares the intriguing path that led her to uncover the mysteries of animal behaviors and the critical role that sexual reproduction plays in ensuring genetic diversity. And maybe one of the funniest people you'll ever meet!

Dive into a world where the battle of the sexes extends beyond humans, exploring phenomena like sexual cannibalism—where female spiders may devour their suitors if unimpressed—and the extreme lengths some male spiders go to survive mating. Discover the curious case of bed bugs practicing traumatic insemination and how female bed bugs cleverly manage paternity through evolved body cavities.

Dr. Anastasia sheds light on the widespread nature of homosexual behaviors across the animal kingdom, debunking myths and challenging our perceptions of normalcy. The discussion also ventures into human parallels, touching on gender expression and the societal constraints on clothing as symbols of deeper sexual conflicts.

Listeners will be captivated by tales of elaborate animal courtships, from pheromones to stunning displays, and the stark realities of sexual conflict, where behaviors beneficial to one sex may harm the other. Dr. Anastasia's insights into counter-evolution against manipulative behaviors and the reasons behind sexual cannibalism in spiders offer a glimpse into the relentless dance of adaptation and survival.

Join Dr. Raven and Dr. Anastasia for a raw, enlightening, and sometimes shocking exploration of this episode, titled Naughty by Nature: Sex in the Animal Kingdom. It's not just about the birds and the bees; it's a profound look at the complex strategies and behaviors that underpin reproduction in the natural world.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova

HOW TO SUPPORT US

Stay Connected: Follow Dr. Anastasia Shavrova on social media with the handle @Sci_Stasia and tune into her very own podcast, "Convos with Chordates," where science meets the heart through engaging and accessible discussions on a myriad of fascinating topics.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:00:24):

Hi everyone. Welcome to The Science of Life with me, Dr. Raven Baxter. Listen, it's been a long time coming. I've always wanted to do a podcast, and if you're listening right now, I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you for supporting me, for following my work, checking it out, giving it a try. This is going to be so much fun. This podcast is not just for people who are in the life sciences by any means. This is your ticket to the Science party. I call it the Smarty Party. Listen, knowledge is power, and this podcast is meant to be not only free knowledge, but free lap, free smiles and free game. No, but seriously, all are welcome here. Here's how I see it. Understanding science is so important to understanding not only the world around you but yourself. This podcast doesn't just look at life sciences, it's the technical aspect of life sciences combines with the social sciences, asking questions about science through both that hard and technical lens, but then looking at it through that flexible, soft societal lens and understanding how those two things really intersect in such a unique way to help us understand life, not just our human lives, but animal lives.

(00:01:46):

Bacteria lives, plant life and beyond. It's very complex. I'm excited to bring you on this journey with me. In this podcast, we're going to be talking with experts from many different parts of life sciences, also many different parts of social sciences. I'm so excited. If you ever have any questions about anything that you hear on the episode, you can reach out to me. I'm Dr. Raven, the science maven on socials on Twitter. I'm at Raven Sign Maven on other platforms. I'm at Raven, the science maven, and I'm a molecular biologist and science communicator who is really hell bent on making the world's biggest science party and giving out invitations to everyone I meet and people that I have never even met before. So let's dive in. Welcome to the Science of Life with me, your host, Dr. Raven Baxter. I am super excited to talk to you, autumn hyped you up so much, and I actually just finished watching one of your comedy shows, shows. I thought it was absolutely hilarious. You were very funny and the crowd sucked. Okay? The jokes they were not laughing at, they absolutely should have been rolling on the floor because I was. I'm like, you guys are not giving her props. Hilarious.

(00:03:12):

And so I learned from the show, you pronounce your name Anastasia.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:03:15):

It's just like, how foreign do I feel today?

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:03:18):

I love that for you. We love a chameleon. Do you care whether I say Anastasia or

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:03:24):

Not at all? Not at all. Whatever your heart desires. Raven. I

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:03:29):

Feel like saying Anastasia, that is a beautiful name. Your family, they were in their bag when they named you.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:03:37):

It's the most common name in Russia. When I went to the nursery school, it was like 80% of the women there were called Anastasia. I'm more unique now that I'm in the Western when I was in Canada and now in Australia.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:03:58):

Okay guys, so today we're going to be talking to Dr. Anastasia Chava and she's a sexual conflict researcher. We're going to get into what that is in this episode. We absolutely fascinating, hilarious. You guys are going to want to follow her, but yeah, buckle up for this episode. A little bit of a trigger warning. We do discuss some sensitive sexual things. This isn't necessarily for kids, so if you have kids and you don't want to hear me talking about sex with a person who studies it, maybe it's a good time to pivot. We talk about it in the context of animals for the most part, and it's really interesting. You have been warned. Episode starting in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 conversation. You study the evolution of sex, which is so boss, I want to know all about your research. Tell me how you got into that. What's your educational background and how did you get into studying the evolution of sex?

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:05:09):

The reason why I even started evolution of sex is because I thought it'd be really cool at parties for real.

(00:05:16):

I was a nerdy kid in high school, so I'm like, what's going to be my thing? How am I going to stand out at parties? Oh, tell them that I study sex. Not good in practice, good in theory, sort of idea. I went to uni in Canada to do my undergraduate degree in science, and I was going to go and be a medical doctor. It was so much memorization. There was a lot of anatomy classes. It was so much memorization and I just wasn't having fun in those classes. I wasn't doing very well in those classes. I wasn't enjoying those classes. I took a lot of electives in biology and one of the classes I took was called Biology of Sex.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:05:53):

Oh, I love that.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:05:55):

And the prof was incredible. He was such a good lecturer. He was so enthusiastic and it clicked. I'm like, this is so interesting. The world out there isn't just as simple as find the best mate. It just, it's actually so many gray areas in between finding the right mate and then having the best offspring and then that offspring then going on to find the best mate, and there's just so many other kind of branches out there. I ended up doing my master's project with him looking at spermatogenesis, which is how sperm get produced and reproduction and how is some sperm better than other sperm? Whether it's, I don't know if you've heard, this is a common kind of biology theory where it's like live, fast, die, young sort of idea and then live long and prosper. So for example, a rat is an animal that mates a lot, produces lots of offspring, but doesn't live as long as say an elephant.

(00:07:00):

An elephant only produces so many little baby elephants in its lifetime compared to a rat or a bunny. That was my masters. I was just like, is it really true? Is the live fast and die young sperm? Is it in any way better compared to the live long and prosper sperm? And then as I was working in a fly lab, we happened to get a lot of spiders in there and I hated spiders. I was like, this is the worst animal out there. Why does it have so many legs and why does it keep eating my laboratory species? I was very fascinated with what we call extreme mating behaviors. So spiders, for example, undergo an actual evolved behavior called sexual cannibalism where they'll eat their mate from an evolutionary perspective where you're always continuously trying to just survive. That just seems counterintuitive. That doesn't make any sense to me. It's an evolutionary dead end

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:07:52):

Sexual cannibalism.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:07:54):

Yeah, it's like an evolved behavior. It continues to evolve. It continues to stay in spiders and other animals.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:08:00):

So let's just pause right here because yes, Dr. Anastasia just said sexual cannibalism. Okay, I think we need to just take a breather, but I had to look it up. Sexual cannibalism is a behavior observed in some animal species where one individual, usually the female in heterosexual encounters, kills and consumes their mate prior to during or after copulation. This phenomenon is most commonly associated with arachnids spiders and insects like praying mantas. However, it has been documented in various other animal groups as well. It definitely raises some questions about evolutionary strategies and sexual selection and the cost and benefits of mating behaviors in the animal kingdom.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:08:50):

I was like, you know what? I want to get to the bottom of this. Why is it a behavior that even exists in spiders, like an actual behavior? And I ended up contacting a prof here in Australia because it's like, what is the best way to study spiders, if not the land of the spiders? And yeah, I ended up here studying extreme mating behaviors using arachnids, all the eight legged invertebrates or many of the eight legged invertebrates as my study species.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:09:19):

Okay, this is all so fascinating, but I have a question. So if animals have sexual behavior, then do they also have dating behavior, right? We hear about mating, but what about dating? Is there courtship?

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:09:35):

Ooh, that's a very good question. I would say that there's actually just a few different categories. There's the animals that kind of are, I would say, how would I say it? Just like true mating, everything that they display is they're trying to exhibit exactly what they're trying to portray. So say birds, right? If a bird is super, super colorful, that's all it's trying to portray is I'm really pretty, really beautiful. Look at my colors, these beautiful colors means I have very good jeans. So our offspring is going to be going to have all these good genes that I'm trying to show, and it's portraying the truth, so it's not cheating in any way. It's not trying to manipulate nothing like that. It's wearing its heart on its sleeve basically. And then there are other animals that actually take a little bit more of a manipulative approach. So they'll do things like cheat, right? They'll cheat on their partners or they'll even cheat their partners. So they'll be like, look at me, I can bring you this really nice gift. And then as soon as the female accepts the gift and then accepts a mate like the mating, the actual reproduction, then the male can just go and steal that gift and then try it again with another female. So it's pretty manipulative behavior,

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:10:56):

Right? Honestly, that's really sheisty. Imagine some guy trying to floss you out. He bought you a Cuban link tennis bracelet, like VVS diamonds, he slips it on your wrist and then y'all do the whoopty, whoop, and then he takes it off and then he goes and gives it to another woman. Let's absolutely link. I can't, oh my gosh. I really want to know if animals can cuss each other out. I would.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:11:27):

A lot of animals that give gifts like crickets will sometimes give gifts to their females. A lot of insects really will give gifts. They'll hunt and that's their gift, that their gift is this hunted whatever fly or whatever, say if it is, I'd say spiders would do that a lot. Ones that are more carnivorous, they'll present it to the female as a gift, and then as soon as they m, because sometimes mating can take just a few seconds, they've made it and they're like, okay, see you later. Grab the gift right away. Try to get it with a different female. And then there are animals that just completely try to cheat a female. For example, in salmon, there's the really big kind of, they're like this alpha salmon basically. And so the female wants to make with the alpha salmon, but salmon have external reproduction, so they'll spew out all the sperm and the eggs, and then it all kind of fertilizes in the water.

(00:12:19):

So as this alpha salmon is producing all the sperm with the female, there'll be a little sneaker salmon that will come in and at the same time, he'll hide behind the really big alpha male salmon so that the female can't see him and that the big salmon can't see him, and then put out some of his sperm in there so that some of the eggs actually get fertilized by his sperm as well. And then he's, okay, see you later. I didn't even have to do anything. I didn't have to make a nest. I didn't have to impress the female. I just came in while you guys were distracted doing the deed, and I just edited a little bit of my sperm. So it's a very cheating and manipulative world out there with some animals.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:12:57):

It was at this point in the podcast, Ry was like, dang, have I ever dated a cricket or a salmon? Because this trifling behavior sounds really familiar. Look at that. Shout out to my exes. Yikes. We don't understand the thought process of animals, really, not all animals, but is there intention behind this or is it just innate evolved behavior? What drives this behavior? Do we even know?

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:13:26):

So for a short answer, evolution, evolution drives this behavior, the need to first survive and the need to mate to pass on your genes to pass on and have offspring that are in some way related to you. It's hard to say whether it's a conscious decision when animals do such manipulative behaviors or cheating behaviors. It's not necessarily a conscious decision per se, but it's more like a desperate decision. It's for example, in the salmon example that I gave the salmons that do that manipulative and cheating behavior, they have no other choice because they know they're too small and no female will want to mate with them. So that's the only way that they can mate in that during that breeding time, evolutionarily, they're pushed to those kind of manipulative behaviors in a way, it's not necessarily a conscious decision either. It could have been something that they learned from watching another little salmon do or something that is in fact ingrained in their genes. That was such a good Christian raven, because we don't know, and it depends on the animal, and sometimes we haven't even teased that apart.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:14:35):

And now I'm like, I want to go full in. Okay, we're talking about sex, dude, where did sex even come from? Where did you even come from? Because there's some things that don't even need sex to reproduce. So what the fuck? Think about how it seems like there are asexual plants and bacteria and things like that. There is asexual reproduction, but it seems like other than that many organisms on this planet are having sex, and we've all evolved this. Where did it come from?

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:15:05):

That is also one of life's mystery because there are some animals that can asexually reproduce.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:15:12):

Okay, so quick biology, asexual reproduction is not what humans do. Humans do. Sexual reproduction, we be having sex, sperm, egg, each of those are called GAMTs, okay? Sperm is gametes that come from male humans and eggs are gametes that come from female humans and they meet combined to produce another organism. But asexual reproduction is a mode of reproduction that does not involve the fusion of GAMTs. In this process, offspring a rise from a single organism and inherit the genes of that parent only, which actually makes them genetically identical to each other and to the parent. That's a form of reproduction. That's common in many plants, bacteria, fungi, and some animals.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:16:01):

A lot of them happen to be invertebrates. A lot happen to be insects. For example, there's this animal in Australia called the stick insect, and some of the females just asexually reproduce. There's an entire population that just asexually reproduces. It creates more females, and those females are clones of the mother. And then there's other populations of the same species that have males. And there's a lab actually at my university that studies if there's any prose to being asexual or any prose to being sexual, and there really isn't. So the question is then why does this species even have males? And why is it that we as a lot of vertebrae animals, a lot of your cats, your dogs, your humans, why did we evolve to have sexual reproduction and obligate sexual reproduction? So we can't asexually reproduce. There's a few reasons for that because the mixing of genes is very good. It creates genetic diversity. It helps us survive in a changing environment. That's one of the reasons, and it's a really great reason. But for many other edibles, they really can just asexually, reproduce and live quite happily that way. As long as the environment doesn't drastically change, they can continue to stay in this constant environment.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:17:18):

Let's just note how she said, as long as the environment doesn't drastically change, they can continue to stay in this constant environment. Put a pen in that, and I want you to go and look up some alarming facts about the species that we are losing due to climate change. Yikes. Let's start connecting some dots

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:17:40):

Here. They don't have to adapt. They don't have to really change. They can just create clones. There's even very recently, I think it was two or maybe just one ago, there was a crocodile that created that basically asexually reproduced reptiles do have a higher inclination to perhaps be able to asexually reproduce. It was maybe something that they used to be able to do thousands, millions of years ago. But there was this article that came out saying this crocodile is a virgin crocodile, and she created an egg that was theoretically viable. However, that embryo didn't survive very long. I believe it didn't even get to hatching, but there was a little baby crocodile in there, so she was technically able to asexually, reproduce embryo just didn't live very long. The embryo didn't survive to hatching and couldn't do that. The potential is there, and why wouldn't it come back? Why isn't that something that could still happen? Yeah, it's a very good question, and it's really one of life's mystery. I like to anthropomorphize it and maybe even exaggerate it and say, why do we even need men?

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:18:47):

Listen, I love men, okay? I love men. I love women. All right? However, as she was explaining this, I asked the same thing, why? And that made me think about something. I learned about the human. Why chromosome. Most female humans have XX chromosomes, and most men have XY chromosomes, and it's that Y chromosome that kind of makes men do the men things for the most part. Not entirely. It's very much not the whole story. We'll get into that in another episode for sure, and how over millions and millions of years, it will eventually just become nothing, and it's losing. I think it's, what was it? Yes, within the last 166 million years, the human Y chromosome has lost most of its 1600 genes at a rate of nearly 10 per million years. So then at this pace, the Y chromosome is expected to vanish in about 4.5 million years. And then we know males who don't have a Y chromosome are unable to produce sperm and basically reproduce. Maybe nature's asking the same question.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:20:06):

Exactly, right? It could be moving in that same direction. So the Y chromosome is so interesting because for very long we thought that it was non-coding, that it was just a chromosome to basically determine the sex of that animal, whether it was going to be an x, y or an xx. And slowly and surely, it's really hard to code the Y chromosome. And I'm not positive as to why. It could be because it's so small. It could be because there's so many repeating genes to it, so it's hard to code. But very recently, we've started to see that there are some coding parts to the Y chromosome, but it is more specific to sperm and sperm production and kind of things that are associated with the kind of biological factors of animals that have that XY chromosome or hetero comedic we call it, right? So there's homo comedic, which is two of the exact same chromosome.

(00:21:05):

So in the case of humans, it's xx. And then there's hetero comedic, which is the xy, which is two different chromosomes, and yet it's those hetero comedic ones that Y like chromosome is what's coding things like sperm and sperm productions. But yet, of course, it gets smaller because in evolution, if you don't use it, you lose it. So if there were so many parts of it that weren't really being coded for anything, then yeah, it just started to wither away, and now it's down to its bare basics. Whatever it needs, it'll keep sort of idea. But will it fully go away? I don't think so. Unless again, maybe we'll have no need for men soon. When we finally learn to sexually reproduce,

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:21:50):

I feel like we would've figured it out with crispr, how to gene manipulate by the time that comes around. So someone asked me, this is, okay, let me back this up. This is going to be something that needs some context and prefacing, okay, sperm, right? We have sperm. Can we talk about semen? Sure. Okay, let's talk about semen. Now, I listen to a lot of rap music.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:22:24):

Never heard that. I'm not going to lie, never heard that statement. Wait,

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:22:27):

Let's talk about semen. We're going to have a candid conversation about semen. And guys, me, it's just a biological fluid, okay? Everyone is groan here. Now,

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:22:39):

It's actually very fascinating fluid.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:22:41):

Ooh. In the rap music I listen to, which tends to be the rap music. The rap music that is like the bottom of the gutter. Don't play it around. Grandma, go, repent. That music is what I love and thrive on. So there's this song called Throat Baby,

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:23:00):

Okay,

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:23:01):

It is it called Throat

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:23:02):

Baby. Where is this going?

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:23:05):

POC. There is a line in the song where the rapper, BRS, cash, he says she gets protein when I give her them babies, I babies being sperm with the sperm. He's talking about semen. He's talking about putting semen in a girl's throat and she's getting protein. And so as a scientist, scientifically, I said, how much protein, how much? Let's quantify this. If you're going to talk about this like it's a dietary supplement, supple, we got to put some numbers to it. I got my calculator out and I cried some numbers.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:23:50):

Also, love your calculator. Thank

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:23:52):

You. As you can tell, everything in here is shiny. And so I found a paper that described the chemical composition of semen, and the average protein concentration of semen is 5,040 milligrams per 100 milliliter. And so I said, since one ejaculation usually produces about five milliliters of semen, you can estimate average ejaculation containing about 252 milligrams of protein. So then for science, I said, how much semen would you eat to reach your recommended dietary intake? Oh

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:24:28):

God,

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:24:29):

I found you got to walk with me. Wait, let me have you guess. First, how much semen do you think someone would need to digest for it to reach their dietary intake for 175 pound person,

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:24:44):

Let's say, oh my gosh, I'm really bad at these math guessing games.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:24:49):

It doesn't have to be,

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:24:50):

Right. I'm going to say a liter.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:24:54):

Wow.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:24:54):

Is that too much

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:24:57):

About to find out? Oh,

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:24:59):

Dear.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:25:00):

I, oh my gosh. The RDA, which is the recommended dietary allowance. Okay, so you can calculate your recommended dietary allowance for protein by multiplying your weight and pounds by 0.36. So for example, the RDA recommended dietary allowance for a very active 45-year-old man. Yep. And let's call him Joe, who weighs 175 pounds is 63 grams of protein a day. I got that from the USDA United States Department of Agriculture. So then for science, how many ejaculations would it take to reach a recommended dietary intake for Joe? So 63 grams is equal to 63,000 milligrams, and if the average ejaculation contains around 252 milligrams of protein, then we would divide 63,000 by 252 milligrams to get 250 ejaculations. If each ejaculation is five milliliters and it takes 250 ejaculations to reach Joe, 175 pound person, his recommended dietary allowance, you multiply that by five, you get two, you get 1,250 milliliters. You were great.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:26:15):

Okay. Oh,

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:26:16):

Okay. 1.25 liters. You were actually almost right on the money.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:26:21):

Goodness, I thought I was exaggerating. Oh, that's a big jug of milk.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:26:26):

Yeah, it's huge.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:26:27):

Yeah. Oh God, yeah.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:26:31):

Yeah. I'm sure that fits somewhere in our conversation, but I learned a lot about semen.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:26:37):

So sperm without those proteins is actually useless.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:26:42):

Whoa.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:26:43):

Because that's why it's called semen and not just sperm, right? The semen holds the sperm and the sperm proteins all in this one great solution because if sperm was on its own, it's like sperm is the stupid brother that needs to be led through life needs to be handheld, and the proteins do all the handholding. The uterus is actually a very toxic environment for sperm. So the proteins not only protect the sperm, but they genuinely guide the sperm to the egg. The proteins do all the work, and yet the sperm get all the credit. Some of them have multiple functions, but many of them have one main function, whether it is to protect the sperm, to help the sperm move to actually even increase sperm fertility before it even enters a uterus. The proteins do so much, but really get none of the credit. Everyone's like sperms the best, and it's the proteins are the best.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:27:38):

And it was at this point in the podcast where I was giving Dr. Anastasia her props because we've talked about at this point, things from ecology, evolution, and now we're getting into developmental biology. We're getting into reproduction, we're getting into molecular and cellular biology. She is extremely well versed in her biology. And let's just take a moment to appreciate the broad and deep knowledge that she has in so many areas of science. Get it, girl, get it. If

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:28:15):

You look up accessory gland proteins, a lot of them are typically, what they're called is accessory gland proteins.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:28:22):

I wonder, so I guess when men get tested for fertility, is that one that they're looking at?

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:28:30):

I think even that part of research is still in its infancy. We're still finding out a little bit more about it, how you have to sell your research to grants. And as a researcher, Raven, you're very familiar with it. You always have to find application to your work. So when I was doing my master's in spermatogenesis, because I was specifically looking at the proteins, and the more I was finding out, the more I was understanding how important these proteins are. And so one of the ways that I was applying my work is to saying, yes, we should be looking at the sperm and sperm motility is very important, but perhaps we should also be looking at the proteins within the semen because that could also be contributing to the success of fertility for men. So I am not super familiar on the research in humans for myogenesis and human research, but it was definitely a push that I had in my masters that would be the next step past the animal models.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:29:27):

I thank you for explaining that. I also want to acknowledge a very funny joke that you made in a standup comedy show that I just watched that you gave, and it was that you study sex and I guess watching sex happen, or what did you say?

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:29:46):

I said, if we're watching humans have sex, I'm a pervert. If watching animals have sex, I'm a scientist.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:29:53):

And that is so true. When you said that, I thought about my ecology professor. I took an ecology and evolution class in college, and Dr. Redacted professor name showed us a video of two pandas having sex, and he just whips out the tape and we're watching two pandas going at it in the wild. I want to get into your research about sexual conflict and then touch on some parallels in animals versus humans. Humans are animals. I always feel weird making that distinction that people versus non-people, what does sexual conflict look like?

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:30:37):

So one of the reasons why so many biologists prefer to use animal models over humans is because humans, there's a psychology part to humans that it's so hard to understand, and it's so hard to break it down to the basics with animals, especially when it comes to model animals like flies or spiders or crickets or anything like that, we basically have them from eggs to adults, and then we create more eggs and then we've standardized them in some way. You can't do that with humans. So that's one of the reasons why it's hard to fully extrapolate from animals to, well, from laboratory animals, let's say from animal research to human research, but then plus there's that psychology part to humans. But there are some kind of hints that we can get and a few different perhaps maybe anecdotes that we can extrapolate from our animal research back into humans.

(00:31:33):

So the more I've studied animals, the more I'm like, oh my gosh, humans would a hundred percent do this as well. So when it comes to sexual conflict, I call it the arms race between males and females, right? Sex is selfish, sex is selfish. Typically, one of the both parties should be gaining something from it. When it comes to animals, a lot of the times it's the females are looking for good genes for their offspring. The females are looking for a really pretty partner. The females are looking for someone that that might be a good father. All these things, and the males in the animal kingdom are looking for similar things. They're looking also to have really good offspring. That's a shared thing that both males and females have. But males are also looking to spread their seed, and they can't do that with just one female.

(00:32:26):

They want to find multiple females. The female doesn't want that from her partner. So that's why there's this arms race. It's like the benefits to one sex might be different, and then the benefits for the other sex are different, and sometimes even the opposite of the other sex. And so that's why the conflicts arises In humans. It's actually very similar, right? Females with uterus, if you go through pregnancy, that's quite a big burden right on your body. It's a beautiful part of reproduction and human kind of life. But it is hard, right? It is hard. It's hard on the body. It can be hard mentally, while the male doesn't really go through that. So that's why humans might want to look for a really good partner, a partner that will take care of them during that pregnancy stage, and a partner that will be a really good parent to that offspring. Animals do very similar things. There are some animals that actually have parental care birds. They have parental care. When a female bird is looking for a partner, she's looking for the best dad. She's looking for the dad that will help her raise those chicks, right? In some cases, the dad fully raises depending on the animals. Let's take our pregnancy example. Conflict arises when the partner doesn't give as much energy to the person that's pregnant, as pregnant person is giving to their offspring, right?

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:33:45):

This also hit home for me because I am recently divorced. One of the major reasons why I got divorced was because the person that I was with totally dropped the ball when it came to how they handled my pregnancy, how they handled my miscarriage, it was just bad. I was questioning one, are you going to be a good dad if you can't take care of me? And then also this partnership, I'm questioning it. One thing led to another, and I said, you know what? It's not going to be you.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:34:13):

So if you're not taking care of me, you're also not taking care of the offspring. And so the conflict can arise there. And it's again, very similar in animals. There's videos even of females, female birds getting angry, the male birds because they're being bad dads, and though actually they'll fight between each other. This is the funniest thing for me. This is why I think animals, humans are animals, and there's so many different similarities. I was reading this one paper, and so there's this animal called a dung beetle. So they're beetles that typically use dung to put their offspring in. They'll actually lay their eggs in the dung, and then that's nutrition for their offspring and everything like that. So they want to find the biggest piece of dung, and those beetles actually have parental care. So they'll find each other and they'll stay in that pair and they'll raise the offspring together.

(00:35:02):

But there was this paper I was reading, and it was an older paper too. So a lot of it, what you put in those papers you could get away with quite a bit. And the scientist tells a story of how the male and female beetle were working together on this dung, and then all of a sudden, the male beetle climbs up the top of the dung and starts releasing a pheromone to find another female. And so the female dung beetle starts crawling up and starts grabbing the male dung by the legs and trying to pull him down to be like, what the hell are you doing? I am right here. You dare start looking for other ladies. We're in the middle of our life together, basically, and I just found it so funny.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:35:49):

Yet another example of trifling behavior from males in the animal kingdom, I cannot believe. How dare you. We just made this little dung thing together, and all of a sudden you want to get up on top of this thing and try to get some other beetles. You trying to get other beetle booty right here, right in front of my salad. It couldn't be me. If you like this episode so far, like subscribe and turn on auto downloads on your favorite podcast app, and rate us five stars too. Thank you. And we can speak, right? People can talk, but animals. How do animals communicate their sexual desires?

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:36:37):

A lot of it is through pheromones. A lot of it's through pheromones. Animals are so fascinating because they do so much to try and impress mates, and humans can learn a lot from animals in that way. For example, we'll take birds again, right? Birds dance for each other. Birds can sing for each other. Frogs will also sing for each other. Actually, a lot of insects will also sing, and some will actually even dance. So there's this arachni called a pseudo scorpion. So it's this really small little, and it's missing the stinger like a scorpion would have, and that's why it's called pseudo scorpion or fake scorpion. These little animals, what they'll do is they'll grab the female and basically dance with her a little tango to try and be like, please mate with me. I'm, look at me. I can dance. I'll be such a good father. Or I'll have all these good genes for our offspring. So the animal world is actually so intricate in how they try to impress their mates and females. I say females, it's not only females who pick the partner. Males can do that as well. It depends on the animal, right? There's also some birds will build a really intricate nests. There's a bird called the Bauer Bird in Australia. So it's this very plain looking bird for us, for our visual, for our eyesight, just a black bird.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:38:03):

The reason why she said for our eyesight, it's just a black bird, is because birds can see some other stuff. Okay? Listen, they can see ultraviolet. So the bird that we think is just a regular black bird could very well be giving Pokemon energy. It could be giving intergalactic, you know what I mean? Okay.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:38:26):

But that bird will build these huge intricate nests, and then it'll decorate them with typically the color blue. So it will go out and it'll go out into the city and it'll go and it'll find all of these shiny blue things and it'll decorate its nest with it. And then when a female comes along, he's out there showing off his nest. Look at how beautiful my nest is. This is where we could live together. This is what we could do. Humans could learn so much. There are so many ways to impress your date, to impress your other half, and we could learn a lot from animals.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:38:59):

Honestly. The topic I'm about to speak on in a different episode to talk about gender expression, but I learned something from my dad. My dad is Native American, and my father's side of the family is a part of a tribe in Virginia, and they're involved and they do things I'm not. But I grew up with my mother, and when I got older, I decided to embrace native culture, learn about my heritage. And so I decided to get some regalia, and I wanted to go to a powwow. I wanted to dance. All of my stuff is very sparkly, and I have a whole bunch of sparkly stuff. I love rhinestones, I love shiny things. So I'm looking on websites. I'm looking at stores, small businesses, trying to find some really glitzy glam, powwow or Alia. And I called my dad and I'm like, dad, what's going on?

(00:39:52):

I cannot find any women's clothes that are nothing other than leather with fringe, maybe some feathers, maybe some bones, maybe some cute embroidery, but it was not. But what did men have? The men's clothes. Men's clothes, bead work, bones, feathers, embroidery, jingly, jingle bells, fringe, headdresses, all kinds of things. And I said, dad, why can't I find women's clothes? He's like, Raven. That's what happens in the natural world. We pattern after the natural world. And in nature, a lot of the male species are the ones that are more decorated and they're the more showy species. And so you see that in our clothing. I was dumbfounded.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:40:39):

It's so beautiful.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:40:40):

It is beautiful. And I honestly think about what would our society look like? Societies where we were colonized and indigenous culture was nearly wiped out. What would it look like if everyone here actually had an opportunity to embrace that natural pattern of self-expression? And I think about if a boyfriend, and he's an artist, and he's also an astrophysicist, but he's very expressive and he does oil painting. But when we go shopping together, the men's sections are so plain, it's giving techy navy, black, brown. They're very rarely will you ever see, I don't know, cheetah print or zebra. I just wonder how much conflict we see in human society is because we don't, because men don't have, I guess, the natural way of expressing themselves as we see in nature. That was spiel. But that's one of my deep thoughts I'm going to unpack on this podcast.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:41:45):

I love that. I've never seen it from that perspective, but you are so right. And a lot of indigenous cultures do, in fact take from the animal world. They get so inspired from the animal world, and I find that in colonized society, we lose a lot of that. And you're very right. There's always the joke of, oh, it's so easy for men to get ready. You just put on a top and pants and you're good to go. Versus women are putting on makeup and putting on beautiful dresses, and we have so many clothes to pick from and everything like that. So of course, not always the case. There are some men who know how to express themselves and who express themselves so wonderfully, but I feel like even then it's harder for them than it is for a female identifying person. Yeah, I really love how you put that. That was beautiful.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:42:37):

Thank you. I think about that a lot. Especially when I go shopping. I do not think it's fair that men, that the men's sections are so limited. I do think that really push, at least give them more colors. Can we get an orange? Can we get a tiger print sexual conflict that what does that actually mean?

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:43:09):

So it means behaviors of one sex that are detrimental to the other sex, and it could be detrimental in very big ways or just very little ways. So for example, there's things like, and maybe we should have a bit of a trigger warning. Again, I am speaking about animals, but there are some extreme cases such as traumatic mating. For example, there's this animal called a water strider, and you'll see them typically in the springtime, you'll see them, they're all over the world. I've seen them in North America as well. There's these animals that kind of walk on the surface of the water, and they look like spiders, but they don't have enough legs to be called a spider. And the way that they mate is very, just a very horrible manipulative behavior from the male is what will happen is the male will mount the female and then he'll start vibrating the water around the female. And that vibration lets the fish in the water know, oh my gosh, there's some food up there. So he's vibrating the water and he's basically telling to the female, you either mate with me or we both die because I'm calling the predators. I'm calling the predator. So let's mate. Or we both die.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:44:24):

No way.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:44:26):

So that's extreme sexual conflict. That's an extreme behavior. And so what I do in my work is I try to see how can, for a lack of better word, how can the victims of these really manipulative behaviors, or even sometimes genes, how can they counter evolve against that? For example, in the case of spiders and sexual cannibalism, so in that case, it's the female who's being the manipulative sex. It's the female who's eating the male spider first. What I researched is why did it evolve? So why is it even there? Why is that a behavior that's there? And there's multiple hypotheses for it. It's either females in arachni tend to be bigger than the males. So it's like the female could just have really bad eyesight. She gets confused. Females could just be really aggressive and just really unimpressed with the male. And then there are other hypotheses that are like, oh, maybe the male is offering some sort of nutrition when he gets swallowed by the female to try and get as much offspring, give the offspring a better a fighting chance or whatever.

(00:45:32):

And so when I looked at it that way, I've tested all of these hypothesis to see which one could be more accepted. Turns out so far from my work is that females, it's what we call extreme mate choice. So the females were just so displeased with the male that they went, you are way better off his food than you are as a mate. So they just eat him before he even gets, he could be in the middle of dancing or in the middle of strumming the web, really trying to impress the female being the best guitarist that he can be. And Ben, she eats him because she's so unimpressed. So that's the most likely hypothesis. But again, it depends on the species. But the counter evolution is what was really interesting to me. So in some species, the male spiders have counter evolved, where if they get swallowed by the female, they do in fact give some nutrition, but not particularly. And then they're like, okay, time to jump into the jaws of death. They'll jump in. And then because of this wonderful sacrifice that the male has done, the female will fertilize more eggs with his sperm than she would with any other male because she's, thank you for your sacrifice. So that was a counter-revolution that happened that was just like, this is a great way to try and gain back some sort of advantage for the male.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:46:57):

Listen, of all the things that you've heard in this episode, if that didn't blow your mind, I don't know what will girl, I don't know what will.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:47:06):

There are also males, for example, spiders have a load of legs. Some male spiders have evolved a longer third pair of legs. And what they'll do is when they meet with the female, they'll actually take her jaws and hold her jaws open with that third pair of legs while they're mating to avoid her from eating him. And then as soon he's finished mating, he lets go and he just jumps out. There's literally videos of him just using her to jump off as far away from her as possible. So he definitely can't be skipping like day if he wants to survive that mating. So yeah, there, there's all these different counter evolutions that animals can make against such manipulative or harmful behaviors.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:47:55):

I was literally speechless. What would you say are some of the most surprising things that you've learned in what you research?

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:48:09):

Ooh, that's a great question. So some of those counter evolution methods that I learned about are really interesting to me because you wouldn't have even thought of some of them. For example, one of them is in bedbugs. Do you know anything about bedbug mating?

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:48:28):

What? No.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:48:31):

So bedbugs suck bedbugs for me. They are the worst animal on the planet as bedbugs. Even mosquitoes suck. Yeah. But bedbugs are like just the scum of the earth and their mating behaviors will probably make you hate them even more.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:48:46):

Trigger warning, we're about to talk about traumatic insemination, and it is pretty much as bad as it sounds. So okay, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:49:02):

So what the males have evolved is, again, similar to those water striders is traumatic insemination. So the males in bedbugs don't even use a uterus anymore. They have evolved to have such strong appendages, I don't want to say penis because that is a bit more of an anthropomorphic term. They have evolved these appendages that they literally go up to a female and pierce her body and just release sperm right into her body cavity. That is how horrible bedbugs are.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:49:38):

I know that is probably one of the worst science facts I've ever learned. However, what Dr. Anastasia teaches me next was really fascinating. So just hang in there with me.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:49:55):

But the females have evolved this incredible physical trait. What the females have done is they basically have this cavity in their body that basically goes nowhere. It's just like an empty space in their body that doesn't go to any eggs, doesn't go to any uterus, doesn't go to any reproduction. It's just like an empty space in her body. So when she sees a male coming up to her and she knows she's about to be traumatically, inseminated, she makes sure to position herself so that the male, when he does pierce her body, he ends up putting all of his sperm into that cavity of no man's land. His sperms going nowhere. And so that's a way that she was able to gain back some sort of advantage, gain back an advantage of who gets to father her offspring. And I know it might seem like it wasn't the best counter evolution, but for these animals, this was the best kind of best case scenario.

(00:50:53):

And it does in fact, because the idea of sexual selection is to make sure that your offspring get the best chance your offspring get the best genes. And so that way, that counter evolution does give that choice back to the female to be like, whenever there is a male that I do want to father my offspring, I'm going to show him on my body where my reproductive organs are so that when he does pierce my body, because now that is just how they may, they don't even have a uterus opening anymore. I will show him where to pierce my body to make sure that he does actually father my offspring as opposed to this other guy who just went wherever. So for me, that learning about that was probably a bit traumatic. I'm not going to lie. I already hate bedbugs. And that definitely didn't aid in their kind of PR story or anything.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:51:43):

That's the thing. They're doing this literally in your bed.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:51:47):

I know how disgusting they are just such horrible little creatures.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:51:54):

I feel like we're definitely going to have you on again because I have a million questions. Oh my gosh.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:52:03):

I would love that. I love what I study. Obviously. I feel like every raven, I feel like you can echo this. You couldn't have done a PhD if you weren't passionate about what you

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:52:13):

Did.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:52:14):

So I do love what I study, but it can be a little bit shocking to find out some things that animals do.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:52:22):

Yeah. Do you think that there are any animals that make love versus just have sex?

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:52:28):

Yes. I don't know about make love per se, but there are animals that have sex specifically for pleasure, and there are animals that masturbate as well. So a lot of primates actually masturbate and a lot of primates do tend will masturbate each other and will have sex for pleasure. Some marine animals like dolphins will also masturbate and have sex

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:52:51):

For pleasure. Tell me right now how dolphins masturbate. I need Tell

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:52:56):

Us. I actually don't know how, I'm so sorry. I don't know how specifically dolphin,

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:53:02):

This is a game of popcorn. Every episode we have a new person say, tag you're it. You get to tell us how dolphins masturbate. I'm writing this down.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:53:13):

Okay,

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:53:13):

How do dolphins masturbate?

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:53:17):

I do know how primates masturbate, but I guess that's not as exciting.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:53:22):

I was assuming it's just how we would do it, right?

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:53:26):

Yeah. Very similar for male masturbation in primates obviously varies kind of common sense. First, females we'll actually use phallic shaped objects like sticks and twigs and stuff to masturbate. Yeah.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:53:42):

Oh my God. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And so have you ever dived into homosexual conflict?

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:53:53):

So homosexuality is rampant across the animal kingdom. There are so many animals that are basically only have sex with the opposite sex specifically for breeding. And then all the rest of the year they're just having homosexual sex, which is then for pleasure. That's them having sex for pleasure, still have lots of homosexual sex. Yeah, homosexuality is actually very common in the animal kingdom. Yeah, I haven't dove in into so much of it. I can't say that I've researched it to its full extent. I'm no expert. But yeah, just like animals love having sex and they do not care if you're male or female, they, they're just doing

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:54:39):

It. That's so interesting. I watched a nature documentary about maybe was it birds mating? It was like animals mating and they never talked about homosexuality. It was very much all about male and the female. I can't recall a single sentence in that documentary where they talked about homosexuality. But how do you feel about that? Do you feel like the full story is not being told?

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:55:04):

Yeah, I guess it depends. If the nature documentary is talking about, say from an evolutionary perspective, then yeah, the act of the reproduction that's occurring between the male and the female is specifically there's a purpose to it. So maybe that's why they're only mentioning that in the documentary. But if we look at the entire life of that animal, we could be finding out that they're just having lots of homosexual sex for pleasure. A lot of animals tend to hang out with the same sex. A lot of animals, of course, there are animals that kind of hang out with multiple different sexes and everything like that. But for example, birds, there's many birds that kind of just hang out as just a group of males for a good chunk of the year and a group of females for a good chunk of the year and literally just meet at one point breed and then go back to hanging out with just the boys and just the gals. So yeah, I don't think it's like they were trying to hide anything. I just don't know if it might've confused people if they added that in because it's not necessarily a part of breeding per se. And it's just like the life cycle of the animal, just what the animal does in its spare time, which

(00:56:15):

They just don't

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:56:16):

Mention. So what animals engage in homosexuality? What does that look like?

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:56:21):

A lot of primates engage in homosexuality, and again, a lot of more mammals do that. So one of the things, caveats I should add is that sometimes it's hard to decipher whether they're having homosexual sex for pleasure or whether they're doing it to assert dominance. So have you ever noticed that dogs, a male dog and another male dog may try to hump each other? So that's not necessarily them trying to gain any pleasure from the interaction. Sometimes that is a dominant effect. One is trying to dominate the other, and in some cases, in some animals that is the case. However, the only ones that I know are it's primates. And specifically, I think I want to say Bonobos are just the most sexually freeing primates that I've ever come across in my research. They are just humping each other to say hello. They are just so sexually free and they do not care who they're having sexual intercourse with. It

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:57:25):

Just brings me back to the thought of, and being indigenous, really looking at nature through a different lens, even when you're not thinking of sex, in my perspective, it is freeing to just look at the natural world and embrace it for what it is.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:57:43):

Even in indigenous cultures, not only do your typical sex roles get reversed, like we talked about before, but there's so much gender fluidity, which also happens in the animal kingdom. There are genuinely, there are animals that can go from male to female. They can transition themselves or from female to male.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:58:03):

100% agree, and I think we can close soon, but I wanted to touch on that. Is it true that in finding Nemo when the mom died, the dad was supposed to become a woman clownfish or female clownfish?

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:58:15):

That is correct. So in Clownfish, it's the females that are the highest of the hierarchy. There's typically one female and multiple males for a group of clownfish. And that's exactly right. As soon as the female died, Marvin should have became marvea.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:58:30):

And there you have it. They should remake it and make it scientifically accurate.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:58:33):

Finding Nemo is such a good movie because so much of it, so much on the marine science is so accurate, right? Like the currents and so much of it, it's 99% there. But the biggest point for when the Mama Cloud fish dies, and Marvin, I think it's Marvin or Marlin or something, he doesn't turn into a female because also I think that would've been such a beautiful part to have in the movie.

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:58:59):

Honestly. I want to know if the I Theology community was in an uproar when that movie came out because it's arguably the biggest point in the movie, the early moment of despair that ultimately changes the entire film and it's wrong.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:59:16):

I thought it would've been a really cool thing to add into the movie. Just a really cool science fact that you as an adult and kids could be like, did you know that Clownfish could do this?

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:59:26):

Yeah, it would've been super cool, especially since after that movie came out, it seemed like all you saw were clownfish at the pet store. Oh yeah, clownfish and what kind of fish's story. Let's look that up really quick.

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (00:59:39):

Dory Fish Finding Nemo. It's a fictional blue tag,

Dr. Raven Baxter (00:59:45):

Paracantharus hepatustus. The more where can people find you? We're going to talk again, this is not going to be our final moment together. You

Dr. Anastasia Shavrova (01:00:03):

Can find me anywhere on socials with the hashtag Sci SCI, Stasia, S-T-A-S-I-A. And that's everywhere. And I also run a podcast, however, it's not a very scientific podcast. It's called Convos with Core Dates. You can find it on Spotify, on iTunes, and not our hashtag, but our slogan is where two scientists talk to people unscientifically, because we just talk about anything and everything and we go a little bit off the tracks of times and go on tangents. And we try make science, we try to humanize science and make science more accessible. We touch on everything and then sometimes it's random. Our most recent episode was just convos and traveling. It's just a mishmash of everything.

Dr. Raven Baxter (01:00:47):

Dr. Anastasia, thank you so much for coming on. I learned so much and I just know they're going to be begging me to have you back. Guys, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, make sure you rate it five stars on your listening app. The ratings help us so much. And if you want to sponsor us or be a guest on the podcast, make sure you reach out to podcast@thesciencemaven.com. Visit the science of life.com. Consider joining our Patreon where for a couple books a month, you can participate in some really fun behind the scenes activities.