San Antonio College Library

A journey of discovery through the spectacular intricacies of reproduction in the animal kingdom.

The nature of sex is widely misunderstood. The human ideal of sex portrays it as the romantic outcome of love, leading the participants into a long-term alliance enabling them to produce and raise happy, healthy children -- an idealistic picture all too often shattered in divorce court. A wealth of observation of how animals conduct their private lives shows that -- in the wild -- sexual skulduggery and infidelity are much more the norm than the exception. As...

Scientific discoveries about the animal kingdom fuel ideological battles on many fronts, especially battles about sex and gender. We now know that male marmosets help take care of their offspring. Is this heartening news for today's stay-at-home dads? Recent studies show that many female birds once thought to be monogamous actually have chicks that are fathered outside the primary breeding pair. Does this information spell doom for traditional marriages?...

Thousands of zebra face lions, hunting dogs, drought and starvation as they undertake the world's most recently discovered migration. Braving one of Botswana's most brutal wildernesses, they make Africa's longest land migration to reach the rich grasslands of Nxai Pan National Park.

Hybrids can be bizarre and they can be deadly. We look at two hybrid animals that owe their existence to human interference: the pizzly bear (a cross between a polar bear and grizzly bear), which has come into being because of global warming, and the killer bee, brought into existence because of the transfer of African bees to South America.

Serengeti follows the interconnected stories of a cast of savannah animals over one year, in a bold new dramatised natural history format for BBC One. Narrated by award-winning British actor John Boyega, the series captures the high drama of the area's distinctive wildlife up close. There's love and loss, jealousy and rivalry, tragedy and triumph, as their lives entwine and dramatically unfold in the heart of this legendary land. It's the time of...

Some animals have an extraordinary ability to find their way. The dung beetle, an insect revered by ancient Egyptians, uses the sun, the moon, and even the Milky Way to move its prized ball of dung in the right direction. Pigeons are often considered feeble birdbrains, but they have incredible memories that can recall several complex travel routes with amazing accuracy. They even use man-made roads and hedgerows to find the quickest way home.

A wildlife cameraman follows a family of elephants for five years. He captures the drama of the close-knit family that inspires tourists and survives predators.

Freshwater covers only a tiny fraction of the earth's surface, but it is a vital meeting place for many animals - the stage on which millions gather to find a mate. Yet with so little of it available, and often only briefly, the challenge for most individuals is how to overcome intense competition when your rivals are just as dependent on the precious freshwater for their success. Whether it is from melting ice, torrential rain or shrinking wetlands,...