What humans can learn from the sex lives of insects

VPM | By Rachel Faulkner White, Fio Geiran, Manoush Zomorodi and Katie Simon

Published July 15, 2022 at 1:00 PM EDT

Updated April 20, 2023

Part 3 of the TED Radio Hour episode The Birds and the Bees.

Insects experience the world very differently from humans–but they still have a lot to teach us. Behavioral ecologist Marlene Zuk explores what insects can teach us about sex and sexuality.

About Marlene Zuk

Marlene Zuk is a evolutionary biologist that studies animal behavior, with a focus on insects. She is a professor of ecology, evolution and behavior at the University of Minnesota.

Zuk studies how humans make sense of animal behavior and the ways that animal behavior can impact our own.

She’s the author of several books, including Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us About Sex, Diet, and How We Live, as well as Sexual Selections: What We Can and Can’t Learn About Sex from Animals; Riddled with Life: Friendly Worms, Ladybug Sex, and the Parasites That Make Us Who We Are and Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love and Language from the Insect World.

This segment of the TED Radio Hour was produced by Fiona Geiran and edited by Katie Simon and Rachel Faulkner. You can follow us on Facebook @TEDRadioHour and email us at [email protected].

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Rachel Faulkner White

Rachel Faulkner White is a producer and editor for TED Radio Hour.

During her time at NPR, Faulkner White has helped create more than a hundred TED Radio Hour episodes, including a long-form interview on navigating grief and hardship, a look at how family income affects childhood brain development, a conversation on loneliness and human connection and an exploration of outer space and gravitational waves. She was also a producer for How I Built This for five years, where she directed live tapings of the podcast as well as produced fan favorite episodes like The McBride Sisters, Rent The Runway, Bumble and filmmaker Ava DuVernay.

Faulkner White is part of the TED Radio Hour team that received a 2018 Webby Award for their Manipulation episode. She also worked as a research assistant for Professor Steven V. Roberts, author of the memoir Cokie: A Life Well-Lived, about his wife (and one of NPR's Founding Mothers) Cokie Roberts.

Faulkner White joined NPR in 2016 as an intern. She started producing while finishing college, coming into the office between classes, and joined NPR full-time after finishing her bachelor's degree in journalism and mass communications from George Washington University.

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