From childhood most of us aspire to be special; we want to be superheroes, firemen, doctors and royalty.
So, it may come as a surprise to discover that being average might be the key to being the most successful—at least when it comes to health and reproduction. Professor Leigh Simmons' life's work has revolved around exploring sexual selection and the evolution of the mating system; while most of the time he is looking at insects and animals, most recently he has turned his attention to humans.
Winner of the UK's 1998 Scientific Medal of the Zoological Society of London, Simmons is an ARC Federation Fellow with the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences and is head of the Evolutionary Biology Research Group at UWA. In collaboration with Professor Gill Rhodes, from Psychology, Simmons has discovered that humans seem to find 'average' people most attractive.
The benefits of being 'average' can also be more than skin deep, with some studies showing that more 'average' people also tend to be healthier. Perhaps being 'average' in appearance also helps humans to determine the suitability and appropriateness of a mate. Still looking at lower order creatures, Simmons, with a team of academics, is currently looking into sperm evolution.
"It's something we know very little about, which is amazing given that infertility is a world-wide problem. We want to understand what makes a good sperm."
Recently, the Professor has been working with crickets, and in collaboration with academics from the University of California Riverside, has gathered evidence that the song of the cricket may be more than a sweet serenade for a mate, but may actually hold key information about the health of the singing specimen—in effect stating his immune response and strength. Simmons' work shows that there may be less separating us from the beasts than we care to think.
