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Female Lemurs Benefit From Multiple Mates, Study Suggests
by Jennifer Welsh
While it may not be as socially acceptable among humans, a female choosing to take multiple mates is a common phenomenon in the animal kingdom. But why the practice of polyandry (a female having more than one male mate at a time) is so prominent is still a mystery in most species.
Most theories predict that taking multiple mates would be risky for a female without adding benefits. However, new research finds that in gray mouse lemurs, a type of small primate from Madagascar, healthy females seek out multiple mates in the few hours of one night they are receptive to mating every year. These multiple mates must confer some kind of benefit to the females, though exactly how they benefit is unknown.
“Males get benefits from mating with multiple females, because they can impregnate multiple partners,” study researcher Elise Huchard, of the German Primate Center in Göttingen, told LiveScience. “In most species, females only have a few oocytes [eggs], so mating with multiple males will not increase the number of offspring they will have.”…
(read more: Live Science) (photo: Gabriella Skollar)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lsod2jVlwc1qc6j5yo1_500.jpg)
Female Lemurs Benefit From Multiple Mates, Study Suggests
by Jennifer Welsh
While it may not be as socially acceptable among humans, a female choosing to take multiple mates is a common phenomenon in the animal kingdom. But why the practice of polyandry (a female having more than one male mate at a time) is so prominent is still a mystery in most species.
Most theories predict that taking multiple mates would be risky for a female without adding benefits. However, new research finds that in gray mouse lemurs, a type of small primate from Madagascar, healthy females seek out multiple mates in the few hours of one night they are receptive to mating every year. These multiple mates must confer some kind of benefit to the females, though exactly how they benefit is unknown.
“Males get benefits from mating with multiple females, because they can impregnate multiple partners,” study researcher Elise Huchard, of the German Primate Center in Göttingen, told LiveScience. “In most species, females only have a few oocytes [eggs], so mating with multiple males will not increase the number of offspring they will have.”…
(read more: Live Science) (photo: Gabriella Skollar)
Sifaka Lemur
Lemur (by Brittany France)
Aye-aye skeleton and behavior.
Aye-ayes fill the same ecological niche as woodpeckers do, thanks to their loooong and skinny middle fingers that serve the same role as a woodpecker’s long tongue. In addition to their long, bug-picking fingers, they also have constantly-growing teeth. This led to early naturalists to classify them as “Rodentia”. They’re now considered relatives of the lemur, but that classification is still not certain; some species of aye-aye have rodent-like bone structures, and even though molecular genetics shows lemurs and aye-ayes having a relatively recent common ancestor, its classification is still challenged.
Transactions of the Zoological Society of London. 1872.
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