Hachette India

On the Origin of Sex: The Weird and Wonderful Science of How Our Planet is Populated

Lixing Sun

A NEW SCIENTIST BOOK PICK FOR 2026

'Fascinating' SUNDAY TIMES

'This book will make you rethink what you thought you knew about sex' CAT BOHANNON

'A thrilling biological detective story. Brilliant told and relentlessly entertaining' CHARLES FOSTER

Explore the spectacular science of reproduction - from frogs and funghi to seahorses, sparrows and everything in between

Let's talk about sex. Not boring, human sex, but the endlessly fascinating, varied and complex forms of reproduction that can be found in the rest of the natural world.

Whiptail lizards and California condors are capable of immaculate conception, while strawberries are reproductive flip-floppers. Clownfish can permanently change sex, while bearded dragons undergo temperature-dependent sex reversal. For the humble slime mould, sex can involve hundreds of mating types - a veritable bonanza.

Lixing Sun has spent decades expanding the bounds of what we know about reproduction, in all its many flavours. And as it turns out, sex is far more complex and eye-opening than we ever could have imagined.

Lixing Sun

Dr Lixing Sun first studied at East China Normal University in Shanghai before completing a PhD in ecology, behavior and evolution at the State University of New York and Syracuse University. He is currently a Distinguished Research Professor at Central Washington University. He has authored or coauthored over 60 research articles in scientific journals, and contributed extensively to a number of academic books, as well as authoring three non-trade books, the most recent of which was selected as a Book of the Week by the Wall Street Journal and the New Yorker. He was awarded a Harvard Radcliffe Fellowship in 2024.