Elsevier

Animal Behaviour

Volume 65, Issue 1, January 2003, Pages 89-94
Animal Behaviour

Regular Articles
Female Japanese quail aggregate to avoid sexual harassment by conspecific males: a possible cause of conspecific cueing

https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2002.2057Get rights and content

Abstract

In a series of three experiments, we examined the hypothesis that female Japanese quail, Coturnix japonica, are motivated to form aggregations to reduce the probability of harassment by conspecific males. When in the presence of a conspecific male, female quail both sought others of their sex and remained near them. However, if no males were present, females were indifferent to or tended to avoid one another. We interpret these data as consistent with the hypothesis that one function of aggregations of female quail is to avoid harassment by conspecific males. Skew in male mating success would be a probable consequence of such aggregations of females. Copyright 2003 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Correspondence: K. Persaud, Department of Psychology, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada (email:[email protected] ).

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