On 21/07/2012 5:46 PM, Ian Fraser wrote:
Thanks Ray. This is a biggie - ie good question! There is no simple
answer overarching answer, but in any case I'm not really convinced by
the question; if you start going through familiar species you'll
probably think of more cases where sexes are the same or nearly so
than where they're not (and even a very few examples, such as
button-quails and painted snipe, where the female is the gaudy one).
As a somewhat facile rule of thumb though, the more brightly coloured
a male is relative to his mate, the more socially useless he is -
although a good case could be made for the social value of being
conspicuous and being eaten, rather than letting it happen to the more
modestly attired female sitting on the nest. This is overly simple of
course, and there's a lot more to it, but I'm sure things are already
occurring to you!
"Socially useless" is a bit harsh, Ian... The one liner is: "It works
mate!"
Being eaten is certainly a drawback if you are gaudy, but not if you are
more likely to pass
on your gaudy genes to the next generation. The existence of gaudy
males says that:
a) females like gaudy males, and
b) gaudy males are more successful than less gaudy males in passing
on their genes.
In such an environment, being gaudy is socially *useful* - because you
stand out from the
crowd.
See also: "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins (and his bibliography in
general.)
--
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Paul Taylor Veni, vidi, tici -
I came, I saw, I ticked.
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