139
submitted 11 months ago by haxor@derp.foo to c/hackernews@derp.foo

There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Shou@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Male aggression leads to a lot of messed up shit. But some stuff is funny. There is this species of hummingbirds where males develop a bright purple star shaped plumage around their face. About 25 percent of females develop these characteristics too. Because bluffing yourself out of male aggression, outweighed the pro's of camouflage against predators. The biologist said that people often ask how it influnenced fheir chances at mating, to which he replied with: "I've seen male hummingbirds try to mate with a stump, so I don't expect it to be much of a problem." Adding to this, is that if too many females develop a male phenotype, the signaling "I am terretorial, stay away or I'll attack" of the feathers loses it's meaning and thus its protection.

this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
139 points (97.3% liked)

Hacker News

14 readers
2 users here now

This community serves to share top posts on Hacker News with the wider fediverse.

Rules0. Keep it legal

  1. Keep it civil and SFW
  2. Keep it safe for members of marginalised groups

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS