Here's the relevant news though: Put a territorial male in a tank with a larger territorial male, and within days his bold colors vanish and his testes shrink. Unlike others who lack such a territory, these successful males "sport bold splashes of red and orange, and intimidating black eye stripes." They also have significantly larger testes (the site where testosterone is produced) and more circulating testosterone than the non-territorial males. According to Fine, only some male cichlids manage to set up a territory to which they may lure females for breeding. Where else, after all, would we find the startling phrase "cichlid testes are a social construction"?Ĭichlids are fish. Fine has written a book that's not only well-researched and convincing but also, at times, delightfully humorous. So Fine's bold writing - "Testosterone Rex misrepresents our past, present, and future it misdirects scientific research and it reinforces an unequal status quo " - naturally appeals to me. It's way too simple to think there's any straightforward male-female binary in the first place. I've frequently taken up against this overly simple view, here at 13.7, for example with regard to anthropologist Melvin Konner's claim that women are biologically superior to men.
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