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Article: Males and mollies: sexual selection. (inter-species mating in the mollie fish)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- February 19, 1994
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THAT mollies should have odd sex lives mighs to offer no benefit whatsoever. A good example is mating with a creature of a different species. Of all the apparently futile activities biologists have observed, inter-species mating seems the most baffling from an evolutionary point of view, because it is almost guaranteed to be fruitless. Natural selection should surely have eliminated an activity that uses so much energy, but yields no viable offspring. Yet a few perverse creatures persist in it, challenging evolutionary biologists to come up with an explanation. Michael Ryan, Cathy Marler and Ingo Schlupp at the University of Texas in Austin may offer the best yet.
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