Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle
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13 March 2022
Douglas Emlen is an engaging scientific author who peppers his own research experiences in the field into his book Animal Weapons. In the main it is about a set of special conditions in sexual selection that give rise to the evolution of weapons, usually in males (but he also talks about jacanas, where the females have the spikes to fight). There are three conditions which much be fulfilled for a species to develop weapons:
- Competition for females
- An economically defensible resource that is scarce but necessary for females
- Defense of the resource via duels
Emlen uses dung beetles, a focus of his own research, to demonstrate why each of these conditions is necessary. He then goes on to show the wider applicability in other types of animals, both alive today and in the prehistoric record. I really wish he had broken the no-equations-in-popular-books rule and shown us Lanchester's laws instead of just describing them in a handwaving way, but this omission is understandable. When Emlen wades into military history, however, he is clearly out of his element and the tone shifts from expertise to interested novice. I came away wondering what he missed in that part of the book.
I'm definitely giving this one a thumbs up 👍
