Some interesting research out of evolutionary biology. According to the team led by Marie-Jeanne Holveck at the Centre of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology in Montpellier, France, 'low-quality' female zebra finches showed a preference for the songs of males of the same quality, and for the male birds themselves. This 'flies against' (sorry) the routine assumption that females automatically prefer indicators of high quality in males. The full text of the paper is available at Royal Society Proceedings B, while the BBC and the New Scientist have good reports. A video of the experiment can be found here.
As I'm sure you already know (but hey, I've got to get in there with the first comment on your blog), the same effect is observed in human 'mating preference'.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, I suppose the interesting research is if your partner's attractiveness correlates with how attractive you are, or how attractive you think you are...
http://www.pnas.org/content/100/15/8805.abstract
Thanks Steve. That's a world-beating first comment!
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