Male cocks [let's all be mature about this] will sometimes have sex with their hens without ejactualting and wasting sperm. Apparently, this keeps them faithful and well satisfied.
This is a great sentence: "The finding may explain why males of many species - from insects to mammals - engage in seemingly meaningless sperm-free sex. "
Har har.
Crazy!: "In 2003, Pizzari and his colleagues showed that male chickens allocated their precious seed according to the likelihood of fathering children. Unfamiliar females always received a fulsome dose, while hens with which the cock had already mated several times ended up receiving little more than ruffled feathers."
Oh man, those mad scientists: "Using cleverly designed harnesses, which prevent cocks from depositing semen into a females’ reproductive tract, the team was able to create two distinct groups - hens that had been mounted, but received no sperm, and hens who had successful, sperm-transferring copulations. ...They found that females that experienced fruitless mountings were equally resistant to subsequent courtship from other males as those females who had received sperm. In fact, the more mountings each female received, the longer her period of fidelity."
Another great sentence: "It is tough to tell why hens, so apt at choosing the best cocks - and expunging semen from undesirable mates just seconds after copulating - could be led astray by such a simple ploy"
A great Article from New Scientist.
Posted by bluprnt at July 11, 2005 06:16 PM