Why alpha males don't always get the ladies

12

Being a man is tough, and being a manly man is even tougher,

particularly in the animal world.

In the animal world, you have two goals in life: to survive and to reproduce.

The second goal actually trumps the first one, since you really, really want your

genetic material to be passed on.

It's therefore no surprise that animals will go to great lengths to find

themselves a mate.

Some species practise what is called a 'polygynous mating system', where a single

male will copulate with many females,

and by doing so, he makes sure that he is the father of the highest possible number of babies.

In polygynous species, males tend to be very big and impressive.

Think of gorillas, lions, elephant seals...

It's not just to impress the ladies though, but also to fend off any other

competing males.

It can even be a matter of life or death. For example, between five and 20

per cent of red deer stags die each year because of the fighting injuries during the rut.

On top of that, if you do manage to obtain a harem, maintaining it can be

very costlyat least energetically speaking. During mating season, male

Galapagos marine iguanas try to secure beach sites with a prime location.

The best territories will attract the highest number of females, and guarantee

the most matings.

Unfortunately, defending your real estate takes up so much time that you can't

afford to eat. A marine iguana securing the best site for his girlfriends may fast

for as long as 49 days and lose a quarter of his body weight.

OK, so it's a trade-off: you put in a lot of effort, but you secure more mating opportunities

Surely it pays offat least the manly males get all the ladies, right?

Well, not necessarily.

Apart from the testosterone-filled machos

there are also males who are not particularly big, impressive or

aggressive; frankly, they wouldn't stand a chance against the alpha males, who

wouldn't even consider them worthy competition.

Interestingly, however, it turns out that they sometimes do better with the ladies.

Take red deer stags, for example: while two huge, powerful stags fight over their

harems in a dangerous antler battle,

the females are being fertilised by the unimpressive,

runty-looking young males. Who would have suspected that?

The technical term for this phenomenon of stealing mates is 'kleptogamy', but the evolutionary

biologist, John Maynard Smith, who came up with the concept, prefered to call it

the 'sneaky f***er strategy'. And it turns out that these sneaky males do quite well

for themselves.

For instance, among grey seals, a staggering 36 per cent of the

offspring from the females the alpha guarded were fathered by other males.

For some animals, kleptogamy is just a temporary strategy, employed until they

get bigger and have a chance at securing their own territory and mates. But some

choose to make a lifestyle out of it. In blue gill sunfish, males can actually

adopt two alternative lifestyles:

either they slowly wait to mature, get bigger, secure territory, build a nest and

become a good dad. Or they mature quickly while they're still small, and sneakily

fertilise the eggs that the good fathers are guarding. These sneaky males actually

put on feminine color patterns and mimic the behavior of females, so that they can

slip into the guarded nest, past the big, fiercely territorial daddies.

Cross-dressing can pay off.

In fact, across fish species the sneaky strategy seems to be a rule

rather than an exception; and throughout the animal kingdom, sneaker males can be

found across all taxonomic groups, from marine isopods to orangutans.

After all, why risk life and limb to prove your masculinity to the world

when you can just stick around,

look very feminine, and sneak in at the last moment.