Male monarch butterflies conduct an all-out sperm war based on a crude measure of how much sperm is stored inside a female from a previous mating (Image: Stock.xchng)

BUTTERFLY sex is not as elegant an affair as you might think. It seems that male monarch butterflies conduct an all-out sperm war based on a crude measure of how much sperm is stored inside a female from a previous mating.

During sex the males physically restrain the females for an entire day while injecting them with a fluid which contains fertile sperm as well as seemingly functionless cells without nuclei.

Michelle …