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How Females Choose Their Mates

Females often prefer to mate with the most flamboyant males. Their choice may be based on a complex interaction between instinct and imitation

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Lee Alan Dugatkin is a professor of biology at the University of Louisville. His newest book is The Well-Connected Animal: Social Networks and the Wondrous Complexity of Animal Societies (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Follow Dugatkin on Facebook at facebook.com/lee.dugatkin/.

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Scientific American Magazine Vol 278 Issue 4This article was originally published with the title “How Females Choose Their Mates” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 278 No. 4 (), p. 56
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0498-56