Comments on: Through the Sexual Looking Glass

By: G

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 20:02:29 +0000

A picture of a seahorse and not a pipefish would be nice.

By: I would rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach 10,000 stars how not to dance | Anna's Hummingbird

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 17:21:56 +0000

[...] Through the Sexual Looking Glass | The Loom | Discover Magazine [...]

By: The Science Pundit

The Science Pundit — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:07:20 +0000

There’s a song about that.

By: Oroboros

Oroboros — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:28:53 +0000

This is really fascinating. I think I knew that male seahorses kept the eggs, but hadn't thought of the bigger implications of how it affects the dynamics of mating. Nature has a couple relevant episodes out that can be watched online: What Females Want What Males Will Do I only made it part of the way through the first one and need to go back again to finish watching, but already I learned there about how some supposedly monogamous "mate for life" species aren't as they appear (and true monogamy is even rarer than thought). Apparently, some females will pair with a good nurturing male but go off to have their eggs fertilized by a more aggressive male. It's easy to see the benefits for her in this infidelity. Her male offspring should get the best of both worlds: a good provider to help raise the more aggressive genes. It probably goes some way to explaining too why some human women seem to be more sexually attracted to the "bad boys" who treat them so poorly.

By: Thanny

Thanny — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:22:02 +0000

Polyandry with male parental investment is also practiced among some birds (such as Phalaropes) and a few mammals (some types of marmosets are all I can think of right now).

But it’s hard to beat what the seahorses do. It makes one wonder just how it got started, given the obvious tendency for polygyny to dominate.