Birds, Bees, Fish.(The Talk of the Town)("Green Porno" )

Two zoologists walked into a bar. They were guests at a reception for their friend Isabella Rossellini, the actress and model, whose latest project, "Green Porno," is a series of one-to-three-minute-long films about animal reproduction. "When we first met, she was next to me at a dinner party, and she told me that what she always wanted to be was a zoologist," one of them, Joshua Ginsberg, a vice-president at the Wildlife Conservation Society, said of Rossellini. "She grew up with a man named Luigi Boitani."

"Oh, wolves!" the other, Natalie Cash, a former producer of animal documentaries, said.

"She thought about studying wolves with Luigi in Italy," Ginsberg said. "And her greatest regret was not pursuing it."

Rossellini had just finished the second season of "Green Porno," which is half comical and half educational, and has won the approval of some conservationists. Rossellini writes, directs, and stars, wearing colorful arts-and-craftsy costumes. The first season received nearly four million hits on YouTube and on the Web site of the Sundance Channel. It focussed on insects and other garden-dwelling creatures: praying mantises, dragonflies, earthworms. The second season is about marine life, which Rossellini has described as "more scandalous than bugs"--an assertion that Ginsberg questioned, citing the fact that female spiders eat their mates after sex.

"Bugs are where it's at," Ginsberg said. "Fish are sort of interesting, because some of them start out as boys and turn into girls. But, basically, mammals are really boring." The room was full of mammals dressed in black, awaiting a screening of some of the new episodes. Ginsberg turned to face Cash and said, "Are we going to see shrimp tonight?"

"I think we're going to see shrimp," she said.

"We're not seeing my favorite, which is squid," Ginsberg said.