Attentive males can pick up sexual cues better
April 6th, 2011 - 1:19 pm ICT by IANSWashington, April 6 (IANS) Males who spend time getting to know females tend to pick up sexual signals better than their less attentive counterparts.
“Many primates, including humans, receive signals from individuals with whom they are familiar,” said James Higham, who led the study at the University of Chicago.
“The results…shed new light on the role that experience can play in reading others’ mating signals,” said Laurie Santos, study co-author and psychologist from Yale University.
Scientists have long been curious about how females of some primate species, including humans, advertise their fertility and how males recognise often subtle signals, the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B reports.
Previous research has shown that the faces of female monkeys sometimes darken when they are fertile, but not all females show exactly the same changes, according to a Yale statement.
Researchers looked at a rhesus macaque population on the island of Cayo Santiago, off the coast of Puerto Rico, testing whether males could detect when a female was ovulating from her picture alone.
They presented male monkeys with two pictures of the same female’s face: one from a day on which she was ovulating, and one from a time before she was ovulating.
More than 80 percent of males from the female’s group were able to discriminate between the two faces, looking longer at the photograph in which she was ovulating than the one in which she was pre-fertile.
This result suggests that males may increase their chance of detecting a female’s receptivity by getting to know her.
- How male monkeys spot a fertile female by reading her face - Apr 06, 2011
- Prejudice springs from ancient evolutionary roots - Mar 18, 2011
- Prejudice is a trait humans have retained from their evolutionary predecessors - Mar 18, 2011
- Monkeys too are racists: Study - Apr 10, 2011
- Social ranking can influence genetic functions - Apr 10, 2012
- Monkey jab may open way for HIV vaccine - May 12, 2011
- Monkeys recognise photos of their friends - Mar 18, 2011
- Like humans, monkeys can recognize themselves in mirrors - Sep 30, 2010
- Monkeys go bananas at the sight of flying squirrel - Jul 31, 2010
- Scientists developing safer, more effective contraceptive - Sep 11, 2011
- Love hormone also fosters kindness among monkeys - Jan 06, 2012
- Females are definitely the chattier sex, even in monkeys! - Nov 20, 2008
- Genetic variation that influences social behaviour in monkeys identified - Jan 14, 2009
- Male monkeys who wash with their own urine 'are sexually attractive' - Feb 25, 2011
- Spanish couple wins Puerto Rico Salsa Congress - Aug 01, 2011
Tags: cayo santiago, co author, counterparts, cues, female monkeys, james higham, journal proceedings, male monkeys, previous research, primate species, primates, proceedings of the royal society, proceedings of the royal society b, psychologist, receptivity, sexual signals, subtle signals, two faces, university scientists, yale university