...of peahens preferring more flamboyant peacock tailfeathers.
It seems to me that peahens preferring peacocks who waste energy on this frivolous trait would have male offspring with less of a chance of surviving in the wild. So please, explain to me the EVOLUTIONARY ADVANTAGE.
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pork soda2009-08-14 3:51
I heard there were a species of crabs in which the females preferred large claws on the males so over time the claws became larger and larger until the males could barely walk.
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Anonymous2009-08-14 22:34
The evolutionary advantage is that it allows the identification Peacocks who have a lifestyle that allows them to grow well and stay safe, which both the peahen and their offspring can later share in.
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Anonymous2009-08-15 22:18
Welcome to the wonderful world of sexual selection, where things don't actually have to make sense.
>>3
That's (a mangling of) Amotz Zahavi's hypothesis, and it's not at all uncontroversial. It's probably part of the explanation, though.
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Anonymous2009-08-16 6:30
>peacocks who waste energy on this frivolous trait would have male offspring with less of a chance of surviving in the wild
You are entirely correct. This is called the "handicap principle": if a male has a major negative trait, and yet it still can find food and evade predators, the females want to pick that one badass to mate with due to his succesfull allele combination. Flamboyant colors are also a good way to show one's health and lack of diseases and parasites.
>>5
Review >>4. Zahavi's handicap principle is by no means the final word on this.
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Anonymous2009-08-16 21:07
>>6
Zahavi's hypothesis necessarily follows from males showing off their health to females. Males with pleasing color patterns and healthy-looking feathers are chosen to reproduce, despite the negative impact they have on survivability, and those traits become more extreme in following generations. But yeah, I admit I used an iffy anthropomorphization in my last post.
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Anonymous2009-08-17 0:30
>>7
It really doesn't. Simple variations of taste, maybe brought about by chance, forming a feedback loop will do just fine for most situations. Not everything has to be an adaptation.