Gorilla sexual intrigue could explain human monogamy
source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17723-gorilla-sexual-intrigue-could-explain-human-mono...
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Female gorillas use sex as a tactic to thwart their rivals, new research suggests. Pregnant apes court their silverback male to stop other females conceiving.
"It seems to us that mating is another tactic that females use to compete with each other – in this case to gain favour with another male," says Diane Doran-Sheehy, a primatologist at Stony Brook University in New York.
Her team chronicled the sex lives of five female western lowland gorillas and one silverback almost every day for more than three years. "We wondered if, basically, [pregnant] females can mimic [ovulating] females and dupe the male into mating with them and distract him from what those other girls are doing," Doran-Sheehy says.
This kind of competitive behaviour may even help explain how humans evolved into a mostly monogamous species, she says.
"It seems to us that mating is another tactic that females use to compete with each other – in this case to gain favour with another male," says Diane Doran-Sheehy, a primatologist at Stony Brook University in New York.
Her team chronicled the sex lives of five female western lowland gorillas and one silverback almost every day for more than three years. "We wondered if, basically, [pregnant] females can mimic [ovulating] females and dupe the male into mating with them and distract him from what those other girls are doing," Doran-Sheehy says.
This kind of competitive behaviour may even help explain how humans evolved into a mostly monogamous species, she says.
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