Male mate choice based on female coloration in a lizard: the role of a juvenile trait

Josabel Belliure, Belén Fresnillo and José J Cuervo

Behavioral Ecology, 2018, vol. 29, issue 3, 543-552

Abstract: In many animals, females choose males for mating in relation to their conspicuous coloration, but males can also select females by display traits. In a lizard species in which females show red tail coloration during the mating season, tail color was experimentally manipulated and males preferred red versus white adult females for courtship. Red coloration makes females more sexually attractive in this lizard species, possibly because it indicates sexual maturity and a pre-ovulatory reproductive status.

Keywords: Acanthodactylus erythrurus; female coloration; fertility signaling; male mate choice; reptiles; sexual selection; spiny-footed lizard (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/ary005 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:beheco:v:29:y:2018:i:3:p:543-552.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Behavioral Ecology is currently edited by Louise Barrett

More articles in Behavioral Ecology from International Society for Behavioral Ecology Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().