Sex In The City

When you think about sex - there aren't many people whose minds turn to the Museum. But that's exactly what is going on - after hours on North Terrace ... a tour which looks at what you can learn about the birds and the bees from the crocs and the chimps. "We'll discover some of the unusual and bizarre things about sex in our natural history area". The tour is led by Dr Steven Donnellan a senior scientist at the museum and a man with good turn of phrase and a keen eye for the wild side of the kingdom. "One of the rules normally kept is if you are born a male you die a male ... but an animal that changes its sex is the Barramundi". During the tour you discover things that might have made Charles Darwin blush.

The survival of so many species is based on some eccentric behaviour ...for example the seemingly innocent splendid Blue Wren of Western Australia is a social monogamist but a sexual polygamist. And research has shown that temperature not genetics determines whether turtles and crocodiles are born male or female. If the temperature around the eggs varies by one or two degrees the sex of the hatchling changes ... and note: this was discovered 30 years ago before global warming started taking effect. Inevitably though Steven approaches the big question ... how does the homo-sapien - the human being fit into the scheme of things. There's only one place to find out and thats in the primate section. Scientists believe the chimpanzee, gorilla and orangutang are our closest relatives, and so by examining their biology, chemistry and lifestyle we can get a clue as to how our monkey business stacks up. I won't steal Steven's thunder, the next tour is on Tuesday March 11th. It's called "Sex In The City" and takes about an hour to ninety minutes. Anyone can come along it starts at the Museum shop just on closing time at 5:30 and costs $12 - and there are concessions. For more information email info@postcards-sa.com.au