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sexual selection
(redirected from Sexual ornament)

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sexual selection

Process similar to natural selection but relating exclusively to success in finding a mate for the purpose of sexual reproduction and producing offspring. Sexual selection occurs when one sex (usually but not always the female) invests more effort in producing young than the other. Members of the other sex compete for access to this limited resource (usually males competing for the chance to mate with females).

Sexual selection often favours features that increase a male's attractiveness to females (such as the pheasant's tail) or enable males to fight with one another (such as a deer's antlers). More subtly, it can produce hormonal effects by which the male makes the female unreceptive to other males, causes the abortion of fetuses already conceived, or removes the sperm of males who have already mated with a female.
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Too short for combat, these horns likely served as sexual ornaments to attract females.
8-horned T. Rex cousin was a 'ballerina', not a macho guy by Asian News International
Also considered is how nonadaptive sensory biases can lead to the evolution of adaptive preferences for sexual ornaments.
Chimps do it, homo erectus did it, we do it; and in a rich variety of ... by Davies, Alastair P.C.; Shackelford, Todd K. / The Journal of Sex Research
Scientists believe this may have been a sexual ornament, like the peacock's tail.
Chinese discover dragon by Birmingham Mail (England)
 
 
 
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