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Charles Choi<\/strong> IT IS a question not just of prurient but also evolutionary interest: what was the mating behaviour of our extinct relatives?<\/p>\n With living apes so variable in their sexual preferences, it\u2019s tough to work out the sex habits of the ancestor common to humans and chimps. Gorilla groups contain just one sexually active male and several females, for example, while among chimps, several sexually active males breed with the group\u2019s active females \u2014 and vice versa. Humans, meanwhile, show a variety of mating behaviours but often form monogamous couples.<\/p>\n Michael Jensen-Seaman and Scott Hergenrother at Duquesne University in Pennsylvania think that it is the chimps \u2014 not humans \u2014 that have experimented with new sexual behaviours since our lineages diverged. Uniquely among apes, male chimps produce thick semen that coagulates into a plug in the female\u2019s genital tract. In a society where females mate freely with several males the strategy increases the chances that a male will fertilise the female\u2019s eggs. But did male chimps inherit their mating plugs from the last common ancestor they shared with us or did they evolve it later?<\/p>\n Read More<\/a><\/p>\n <!– <\/p>\n –><\/p>\n This article was posted: Friday, July 19, 2013 at 3:38 pm<\/p>\n Tags: pharmaceutical<\/a>, science<\/a>, technology<\/a>, vaccines<\/a><\/p>\n
Live Science<\/a>
July 19, 2013<\/p>\n
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