Overblog
Editer l'article Suivre ce blog Administration + Créer mon blog
Bioécologie

Interspecies sexual behaviour between a male Japanese macaque and female sika deer

10 Janvier 2017 , Rédigé par Bioécologie Publié dans #Faune et Flore, #Livres - revues - thèses - rapports...

Pelé, M., Bonnefoy, A., Masaki, S., Sueur, C. et al. (2016). Interspecies sexual behaviour between a male Japanese macaque and female Sika deer, Primates

Sexual mount of a Japanese macaque male on two different deer. a–c Sequence of a sexual mount on a first deer that accepted being ridden. d The macaque tried to mount a second deer, but the latter clearly did not accept the mountAbstract

Interspecies sexual behaviour or ‘reproductive interference’ has been reported across a wide range of animal taxa. However, most of these occurrences were observed in phylogenetically close species and were mainly discussed in terms of their effect on fitness, hybridization and species survival. The few cases of heterospecific mating in distant species occurred between animals that were bred and maintained in captivity. Only one scientific study has reported this phenomenon, describing sexual harassment of king penguins by an Antarctic fur seal. This is the first article to report mating behaviour between a male Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata yakui) and female sika deer (Cervus nippon yakushimae) on Yakushima Island, Japan. Although Japanese macaques are known to ride deer, this individual showed clearly sexual behaviour towards several female deer, some of which tried to escape whilst others accepted the mount. This male seems to belong to a group of peripheral males. Although this phenomenon may be explained as copulation learning, this is highly unlikely. The most realistic hypothesis would be that of mate deprivation, which states that males with limited access to females are more likely to display this behaviour. Whatever the cause for this event may be, the observation of highly unusual animal behaviour may be a key to understanding the evolution of heterospecific mating behaviour in the animal kingdom.

Read the publication here

Partager cet article
Repost0
Pour être informé des derniers articles, inscrivez vous :
Commenter cet article