Female lizard turns the table: Why exaggerated coloration makes her a good mate

Most nature lovers know that the more colorful a male fish, reptile, or bird, the more likely it is to attract a female and to have healthy offspring. Females, on the other hand, tend to be drably colored, perhaps to avoid predators while carrying, incubating, and caring for young. Curiously, the female striped plateau lizard, which lives in the rocky slopes of Arizona's south-eastern mountains, is an exception to this rule in the animal world. Females are more colourful than males ? displaying an orange patch on their throats during reproductive season ? and the more colourful the female, the more robust are her offspring. New research has found one reason this may be so.



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Hmm that is interesting. The story kind of implies that this may result in male mate choice (for females with brighter coloration). This is kind of counter intuitive in terms of mating roles and costs associated with reproduction. Typically it is thought that it is in the males best interest to mate with as many females as possible while females should be more "choosy" because sperm is much less costly to produce than eggs. Granted there are also other complicating issues such as paternal care etc.

I wonder if the researchers involved in this study are working on mate choice experiments to see if there is in fact mate choice by the males of this species. Either way it is pretty cool stuff.

Thanks for posting