2023-10-04 05:50:50
Males do not want to appear intrusive, arouse curiosity, offer contrasting courtship displays or fear the opposite sex.
Male animals often show shy and shameful gestures during courtship, report Viennese behavioral researchers. They then do not want to appear violently intrusive, arouse the curiosity of the potential sexual partner, create a contrast to boastful elements, or they even fear the female, they explain. The study was published in the British Royal Society’s journal Proceedings B.
So far, scientists have primarily examined spectacular courtship behavior in which the animals uninhibitedly showcase their strength, beauty and endurance, according to Giovanni Spezie from the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Comparative Behavioral Research at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna and colleagues. During courtship, however, there are often behaviors that the researchers call “shy displays.” Male golden-crested bowerbirds (Amblyornis macgregoriae) essentially play “peek-a-boo” with the females and hide on the opposite side of the bower they have built until they eventually stop and show off their bright neck crest. Tragopan pheasants crouch behind a stone before standing up and showing off their brightly colored breast flaps.
The researchers believe that the males probably want to use their initial reticence to make themselves appear less intrusive and threatening. There are reports of forced copulation in birds, his colleague Thomas MacGillavry explained to the APA: “Sexual coercion is probably relevant to the evolution of display behavior in pheasants and bowerbirds, for example.” Toothed bowerbirds (Scenopoeetes dentirostris), for example, would often grab females by the neck and not allow them to leave the place of courtship.
In some cases, the males also speculate that they use such antics to arouse the curiosity of their female counterparts, the researchers believe. In addition, initial restraint would make the subsequent presentation of their true splendor all the more spectacular, so the entire courtship performance would then be more contrasting. After all, some male animals are also afraid of the opposite sex. With some spiders and mantises (the most popular representatives of which are the praying mantises), if the males are not careful they will become victims of “sexual cannibalism”.
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