|
|
Re: Canine teeth
Lemonhead (karpiak@bastard.org)
Mon, 5 Jun 1995 18:05:50 -0500
On Mon, 5 Jun 1995, J. Moore wrote:
>
> and fighting as seen in species with lots of sexual dimorphism. Indeed,
> an argument can be made that larger canines actually reduce fighting,
> since they are a more effective threat, and it is recognised that apes,
> like most animals, use more threat than actual fighting, and that the
> fights themselves are often more threat than injurious, especially among
> males (there are some indications that females tend to "fight for keeps"
> rather than display and threaten).
>
You know, that's interesting. I can't remember where, but I
remember once reading about a study in which they did something (i can't
remember exactly what, maybe tied their legs together?) to some male
crickets so that they couldn't produce that characteristic chirping
noise. The larger, more dominant males usually chirp the loudest and
the crickets work out a dominance heirarchy through their chirping and
little fighting. The researchers made it so that the crickets couldn't
chirp any more and they found that the once-dominant crickets had to
fight the once-submissive crickets a lot more when they couldn't produce
their loud chirping. The bigger crickets eventually re-established their
dominance, but only after fighting a whole lot more than usual.
I think this is kinda the same thing as with the canines. True
these were crickets and we're talking about apes here.
--
Kev K
|