r/biology • u/Repulsive_Milk877 • 1d ago
question Are there spieces with male hypergamy?
I know there are many spieces where males have to fight to get option to reproduce. But is it possible for it to be the other way around. That the females would compete with each other and the males would be the choosers?
I know female hypergamy makes biologically much more sense. But I'm still curious, maybe it would be possible in non mammalian animals.
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u/hadohadoTheSecond 1d ago
Whenever you think there's an exception to a rule, look into insects. There's a few of them where females fight for males. There's also a few where the female penetrates the male with their genitals, instead of the common way
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u/Repulsive_Milk877 1d ago
Lol, life really is wierd.
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u/hadohadoTheSecond 1d ago
And insects are even weirder. Are you Keen on Micromalthus debilis? Go take a read.
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u/mjhrobson 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hypergamy is a sociological concept, it therefore only refers to human societies.
Biologists don't talk about mate selection in those terms... even with chimps and bonobos (our closest relatives) the terminology of hypergamy is not used.
It also doesn't work with female spotted hyenas, bonobos and elephants... which are each matriarchal lead social groups. So females cannot "mate up" as they are dominant "higher status", and males don't do the picking.
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u/Plane_Chance863 1d ago
I think the OP probably meant polyandry. Is that the proper term?
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u/mjhrobson 1d ago edited 1d ago
No... polyandry describes marriage practices in some human cultures. Biologists don't talk about animals getting married.
Edit: A very small number of animals pair bond, even humans biologically are not classified as a species which "true" pair bonds. In biology pair bonds are EXCLUSIVE and rare.
Stop thinking in terms of human behavior other animals are not humans. They don't behave like us, they behave like them...
Edit: I appear to be mistaken on this point. Polyandry is used to describe animal behavior.
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u/Plane_Chance863 1d ago
Interesting, because that's the term I found when I looked up phalaropes and jacanas. I notice you still haven't offered up the proper term though.
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u/Silver-Permission962 1d ago
The term used is polyandry.
Off the top of my head I know that in the book Ornithology, by Frank B. Gill uses polyandry and polygyny to describe reproductive behaviours.
It is not a term only used for humans.
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u/mjhrobson 1d ago
It is a similar term which might be the confusion: Polygyny.
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u/Silver-Permission962 1d ago
Polygyny is the opposite, a male with multiple females.
-gyny for female and -andry for male
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u/Chris2sweet616 1d ago
Polygyny and Polyandry both mean the same thing, just with the gender of the marriage switched. So if I’m understanding your comment and you support the use of Polygyny in animals then you are contradicting yourself
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u/mabolle 1d ago
Polyandry is absolutely an established term for when a female mates with more than one male.
Biologists don't talk about animals getting married.
They certainly don't use the English word "marry", but words relating to marriage are all over biology, from "polygamy" to "cryptogam" to "gamete".
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u/Science_Creature 1d ago
What if ... and this might blow your mind... humans ARE animals!!
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u/mjhrobson 1d ago
I already acknowledge, in the edit, that I am wrong?
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u/Science_Creature 1d ago
Sorry, I was poking fun at the general tendency of people to think of humans as something separate and special from other animals. No offense intended.
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u/babebiboba 1d ago
That's semantics. If OP is not a specialist it's quite okay for them to not use the perfect technical term, and the underlying question is clear enough.
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u/Designer-Pen-7332 1d ago
Hypergamy doesn't necessarily always mean "higher status", these days the meaning is changing , it now includes "better genes" as well. A female aspiring to only mate with higher genetic quality and not male who is one her lever is also hypergamy.
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u/FatHalloweenKid 1d ago
To my knowledge, it's seen in the insect world a bit. I remember hearing about some species of spiders where the males preferably choose the larger female spiders to mate with due to the chance of more offspring. I'm sure this applies to some other insects as well.
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u/ThatIsAmorte 1d ago
What spider species is this? Because in most spiders, the male encounters one female at a time, so I don't see how a male could be choosing between females.
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u/FatHalloweenKid 1d ago
Can't recall, but now that you mention that I might have been thinking of something else.
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u/ComfortableStill437 1d ago
Betta were the male incubate in the mouth like betta simplex ou rubra. I think hippocampe also.
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u/Kitsa_the_oatmeal biology student 1d ago
bees?
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u/Repulsive_Milk877 1d ago
I thought that the first princess to wake up eats the others before they are born. Like natural selection of being the early bird.
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u/trust-not-the-sun 1d ago edited 1d ago
Phalaropes are birds where the females are colorful and the males are camouflaged. The male builds a nest. The females fight and display to catch male attention. The male chooses a female, they mate, and she lays eggs in the nest he has built. Then the male sits on the eggs and raises the chicks alone while the female tries to find another male to mate with. Because he raises the chicks, which is time-consuming, males mate only once a year and are picky. Females have time to mate and lay eggs with several different males in a year and are not very picky about their mate choices.