This is a story about deception and sex in the wild plains of Kenya.
Antelope deception, that is, for the purposes of sex.
During mating season, a male topi antelope will try to keep females in heat from leaving his territory by pretending that a predator might be in the area, according to a study that will appear in the July issue of The American Naturalist.
When a female appears to be leaving, the male will run in front of her, freeze in place, stare in the direction that she is going and snort loudly. Typically, that snort means that a predatory lion or cheetah was spotted, but in this case the male is faking it.
“He doesn’t look at the female. He takes a rigid stance exactly as if there were a predator there,” said Jakob Bro-Jorgensen, a research fellow at the University of Liverpool who led the study. Dr. Bro-Jorgensen, who studied the behavior of hundreds of topi antelopes in the Masai Mara National Reserve, said the males acted this way time after time.
Although scientists have observed males deceiving other males to gain access to mates, this is the first finding of a male duping his own sexual partner, Dr. Bro-Jorgensen said. Hearing the snort, the female antelope generally retreats back into the male’s territory, where he will attempt to mate with her right away. Females mate with many males each season, and it would seem that they might catch on after a while. But getting fooled does not have much of a downside, while ignoring what might be a real warning could be deadly.
“It’s too dangerous to take the chance,” Dr. Bro-Jorgensen said.
Asked whether this sort of behavior might occur in humans, Dr. Bro-Jorgensen said he did not know, but “We are masters of deception, so of course you can speculate.”
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