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Trick or Treat

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The Sex Imperative
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Abstract

Many creatures that specialize in night life, or simply live in the dark, can produce their own light. The ability to make light is seen in an array of organisms including microbes, worms, and fish, but for unknown evolutionary reasons, the gift of light making is not shared by the higher animals. One of the things the living flashlights use light for is to signal to prospective sex partners, sometimes so deceitfully that their scheme is a parody, if not a refinement, of what is usually thought of as an exclusively human trait: duplicity and murder for material gain.

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© 1994 Kenneth Maxwell

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Maxwell, K. (1994). Trick or Treat. In: The Sex Imperative. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-5988-1_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-5988-1_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-306-44649-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-5988-1

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