Telegraph | Arts | How I discovered the beast within

Telegraph | Arts | How I discovered the beast within: "How I discovered the beast within
(Filed: 13/05/2003)

Biologist Olivia Judson has taken America by storm, thanks to her sex-obsessed alter ego and the mating habits of spoon worms. Michael Shelden reports

Giving sex advice to lovesick grasshoppers, gender-bending hyenas and bisexual bedbugs seems an unpromising way to win fame and fortune.

Animal magnetism: Dr Olivia Judson's book offers sex advice for all creation

But don't tell that to Dr Olivia Judson - a young evolutionary biologist and research fellow at Imperial College, London - whose quirky manual, Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation, is a surprise bestseller in America and has recently made the shortlist of the �30,000 Samuel Johnson non-fiction prize.
Her book provides entertaining but scholarly answers to questions posed by confused species up and down the food chain, including one from 'Perplexed in Cloverhill', who writes:
'Dear Dr Tatiana, I'm a queen bee and I'm worried. All my lovers leave their genitals inside me and then drop dead. Is this normal?'
In a typically deadpan reply, the good doctor patiently explains that the male bees are simply trying to prevent the queen from mating with other fellows, concluding, 'Alas, Your Majesty, your lovers explode on purpose.'
The creator of this anthropomorphising agony aunt is a 33-year-old fair-haired overachiever who has a degree from Stanford University in California and a doctorate from Oxford, and who gave up a career at the Economist to do scientific research at Imperial College.
For the past few weeks, she has been touring America, promoting her book on chat shows, where her good looks and plummy"