6+
26 March 2024 — 16 June 2024
Расположение:
eng-name / eng-name / eng-name
Location:
museum exhibition halls / 2nd floor / exhibition hall No. 5
What is
gender? Are there only “male” and “female” genders, or are there variations?
What forces “forced” males to acquire elaborate and useless decorations - huge
horns, fancy feathers or eyes on stalks? The exhibition will reveal the secrets
of gender and talk about sexual selection - an evolutionary force first
described by the English scientist Charles Darwin, and the role that sexual
selection played in the formation of humans as a biological species.
In the
world of people, it is quite easy to identify who is in front of us - a man or
a woman. What does a male birch tree look like? Are there any genders for
ciliates? Is it easy to find a life partner for tinder fungi and sea sponges?
Nature knows examples when the sex of living beings depends on temperature, as
for turtles and crocodiles, or changes depending on the demographic situation
“in the collective” - this is what yeast or clown fish do. We invite you to
dive into the “Secrets of Gender” and together understand the intricacies of
relations between the sexes.
Charles
Darwin's famous quote: “…the sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I
gaze at it, makes me sick!”. The royal train of feathers makes the peacock
vulnerable to predators. With such decoration it is difficult to take off and
run away from a pursuer, but even in peaceful life constantly dragging such a
“miracle” behind you is a dubious pleasure. However, there are a great many
impractical wedding decorations in nature! Take, for example, the branched
antlers of a red deer, the spurs of a rooster, or the prominent eyebrows of a
black grouse. Darwin was the first to draw attention to the fact that in nature
it is not only the fittest that survives, but also the most attractive. A
bubbly song, a bright outfit, a bizarre growth on the nose or swollen throat
pouches - each species has its own secret of charm, and rare exhibits from the
museum’s scientific and artistic collection will help reveal these secrets.
Consider the purple bird of paradise, whose luxurious outfit can only be seen
on the island of New Guinea and in the Darwin Museum. Or a deep-sea anglerfish,
which is unlikely to be found in nature: he is looking for his love in the
depths of the sunken Titanic...
The
“quirks” of sexual selection are amazing. Why do female praying mantises bite
off the head of their chosen one? “Marriage cannibalism” is also common among
spiders, but the males of some species use various tricks to save their lives.
Some give edible gifts, others perform a dance of passion, and still others
quickly eject from their gluttonous friend immediately after the date. At the exhibition
you will find dozens of examples of gentlemanly resourcefulness and
self-promotion, marital fidelity and parental self-sacrifice, and following the
scientists you will think about the question of why in monogamous couples males
and females often do not differ in appearance.
Human,
despite the great role of cultural evolution in the history of mankind, is also
subject to the action of sexual selection. Scientists suggest that our beard,
mustache, eloquence, empathy, sense of humor, and even the ability to take our
children to grandma for the weekend arose under the influence of this amazing
evolutionary force. How the families of our closest relatives, the great apes,
are structured, and how evolution influenced the family structure of homo
sapiens - an exhibition at the Darwin Museum will also tell about this.
Учреждение, подведомственное
