Animal behaviour questionnaire #3

Animal Behavior 2. Researchers have always been baffled by the true purpose of the lion’s mane and even though it is thought to be a sexually selected advantage, newer studies have brought to light some of the other main objectives and necessities for the existence of the lion’s mane.
Darker mane meant that the lion were more mature and had higher testosterone levels and naturally the female lions were drawn to the dark maned models. This was primarily because females preferred more mature and stronger males compared to light colored and presumably weaker male lions since the former would be able to lend protection and also show sexual vitality and robustness compared to the lighter and smaller maned ones.
The behavior of the male lions on the other hand is slightly different because, lions have the tendency of assessing each other’s manes and liked to generally engage in fights without any actual physical contact. However, the darkness of the mane exuded that it was thicker than lighter mane and therefore lend better protection in a fight (West et al, 2006, p609) Therefore, the lighter maned ones rarely approached the dark maned models. Dark colored manes means the lion must be aggressive and strong therefore the weaker light colored lions steer clear of the darker maned ones to avoid chanced of confrontations.
3. The findings that indicate that the gender of a species responsible for parental care lives longer is not completely true since it cannot be accurately concluded from the length of an individual’s lifespan that prolonged lifespan was a result of parental behavior among the species. It is also inaccurate the among species which takes a long time to grow and mature, longer lifespan of the parental sex has gained selection advantage is also since a long life is beneficial for the species as a whole and not in terms of individual life spans.
There may be alternate explanations for the prolonged lifespan of the parental gender than that of the non-parental gender. We may perhaps propose that among animals where the female is the care provider, the resources are first taken by the female sin order to feed the young ones of the group. The resources therefore decrease and become limited for the male members of the grout which enhances intraspecific competition for resources among the male members leading to life-shortening risks to acquire the resources for survival. On the other hand among species where the male members are responsible for giving care, the female members compete over the limited resources and hence may have a lower lifespan compared to their partners who are tending to the young ones.
4. Parental care and defense is very costly to the parents and therefore in cases of cuckoldry not all eggs under a parent are their own offsprings (Neff & Sherman, 2003, p85). This makes it important to protect and care for their own brood only. The experiment territorial male bluegill sunfish showed that when exposed to cuckoldry the males defended the eggs less while a similar treatment did not lower or alter the protective investment of the male on its fry. If the decision of extending protection lied simply on cues associated with cuckoldry it would have been assumed that eggs and well as fry post hatching would get the same type of treatment i. e. Same extended protective behavior from their father however it is seen that the fry enjoy greater protection than the unhatched eggs.
The results can be interpreted with the help of proximate mechanisms that the male members of the species use to recognize their respective offsprings. Once the fry hatched it was much easier for the parental male to smell them and determine the paternity of the fry. In the experiment too, the males were able to understand that the fry was their own and hence extended fully fledged parental care to the fry. However, such cue is absent in case of eggs where there is no way for the male members to accurately determine paternity and hence rely they rely on cutting back on the defense extension unto the eggs till they hatch.
REFERENCES
Neff, Bryan, and Paul Sherman. ” nestling cognition via direct cues by parental male bluegill sunfish.” animal cognition 6 (2003): 87-92. Print.
West, Peyton M. ” Wounding, mortality and mane morphology in African lions, Panthera leo.” ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 71 (2006): , 609–619. Web. .