‘Sexual selection can drive the evolution of these flashy traits, but also this kind of social intelligence, these courtship tactics that are also an important part of competition for mates. So sexual selection might be a lot more powerful than we initially assumed,’ Gail explained. All this tactical negotiation requires cognitive power. Male satin bowerbirds have relatively large brains, are long-lived and undergo a strange seven-year adolescence which is spent impersonating the female. Juvenile males share the same green plumage as the females and Gail thinks that learning their complex
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