We recently concluded a thread on the origin of the term "alpha male" for the
top dog in a
group of social animals. With help from other TIPSters, I came to the
conclusion that its
probable originator was the American zoologist W.C. Allee and it may first
have appeared in
his book _The Soci
I recently challenged TIPSters to provide the name for a scientific concept.
The
phenomenon is that subordinate males can gain access to females for copulation
while
the alpha males are competing with each other. What do we call these sneaky
f*ckers
and their opportunistic strategy?
I said
Interesting thought, Stephen. The following article refers to the strategy
as "sneak and rape," but doesn't give a term for the "sneakers" except that
they are "low status males":
http://zinjanthropus.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/what-to-beetles-cuttlefish-and-orangutans-all-have-in-common/
This arti
I believe that Pat Bateson called this sneaky behavior "mate-stealing,"
or "kleptogamy" (as opposed to monogamy, polygyny, polyandry, etc.).
There is another common term for it in the animal behavior world, but I
can't use it on a public listserv;-)
In some species, males "grow out" of
On Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:59:53 -0700, Stephen Black wrote:
>I recently challenged TIPSters to provide the name for a scientific concept.
>The phenomenon is that subordinate males can gain access to females for
>copulation while the alpha males are competing with each other. What do
>we call these
On 14 Sep 2009 at 19:31, Mike Palij wrote:
> I would suggest caution to those who don't have tenure or
> are teaching as adjunct faculty. Especially if you will have to justify
> it to your dean that the "SF" phease is commonly used in relevant literature.
Ah, Michael, Michael, Michael. Nice ra
Stephen Black asked:
"What is the term evolutionary biologists use to describe such sneaky f*ckers
and their
strategy which exploits this failing by alpha males to out-compete them? And if
that's too
easy, then tell me who was the first to use the term, and where."
Stephen- Good one! Off the t
