The power of female choice means male greater sage-grouse must perform an “absurd beatboxing routine” to catch a hen’s eye, as broadcaster and naturalist Lucy Cooke explains. <\/p>

Few animal courtships are as strange or, quite frankly, as silly as that of the greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus<\/i>). In early spring, sage grouse bachelors \u2013 resplendent in their spiky fantail finery \u2013 gather in large numbers on the North American sagebrush plains to compete for a mate. Known as leks, these events are essentially sage grouse discos; the battle for sex is played out using the medium of dance, with the males strutting about, providing their own unlikely soundtrack by, basically, beatboxing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Female choice is the most whimsical of evolutionary powers, with a hand in some of nature\u2019s most extravagant creations: the male peacock\u2019s tail; the stalk-eyed fly\u2019s outlandish eye stalks; and the greater sage-grouse\u2019s absurd beatboxing routine <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
Male greater sage-grouse have a massively distended oesophagus that they can inflate by gulping down mouthfuls of air to create a large, wobbly, white-feathered throat balloon, which when fully swollen briefly exposes two bulbous patches of olive-green skin that pop forth like a pair of shop-dummy breasts. It\u2019s a pretty eye-catching look and, by controlling the expulsion of air, the cocks are able to slap their olive sacs together to generate an even more arresting noise: a loud, high-pitched doink that sounds as if it were made by twanging rubber bands over water.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
The overall effect is pure Monty Python and begs the question, \u201cEvolution, what were you thinking?\u201d What perverse force could have shaped such preposterousness? The answer: female choice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\nFemale choice is the most whimsical of evolutionary powers, with a hand in some of nature\u2019s most extravagant creations: the male peacock\u2019s tail; the stalk-eyed fly\u2019s outlandish eye stalks; and the greater sage-grouse\u2019s absurd beatboxing routine.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nTrying to fathom what females are choosing has long fascinated Gail L Patricelli, one of the leaders in this field. She\u2019s infiltrated the greater sage-grouse courtship routine by creating a robot female on wheels, which she can drive into the lek.<\/p>\nThe female greater sage-grouse is a smaller brown bird and boasts none of the male\u2019s fancy finery. When casually observed at the lek, she appears to confirm all the classic stereotypes of female passivity. While males are beatboxing like fury, she pecks away at the ground, apparently uninterested in the show. It seems as if the males are competing, and the winner gets the mating rights with these passive hens.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nBut Patricelli\u2019s fembot has revealed a more nuanced negotiation between the flamboyant males and the females. Although they may seem passive, the females are in fact listening and watching the male\u2019s every move. They prefer the most energetic males, suggesting that these individuals have the best genes. But more than that, Patricelli has discovered that the females are giving off subtle cues themselves. If the male doesn\u2019t heed to these cues, no matter how energetic his display, she will refuse to mate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nSo, the secret to being a winning male isn\u2019t just about being the top cock, it involves listening as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<section class=\""highlight\"> <div class=\""highlight__content\" editor-content=\"\"> \n<ul>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/why-promiscuity-pays-off-for-female-dunnocks\/"\">Why promiscuity pays off for female dunnocks<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/insects-invertebrates\/why-do-female-octopuses-die-after-reproducing\/"\">Why do female octopuses die after reproducing?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/hawaiis-lesbian-albatrosses\/"\">Hawaii\u2019s \u2018lesbian\u2019 albatrosses<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\""https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/marine-animals\/bonnethead-sharks\/"\">Bonnethead sharks: the shark that gives birth without having sex<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> <hr\/>\nMain image: illustration by Holly Exley<\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The power of female choice means male greater sage-grouse must perform an “absurd beatboxing routine” to catch a hen’s eye, as broadcaster and naturalist Lucy Cooke explains. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":26934,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/04\/sage-grouse-beatbox-to-attract-a-mate-scaled.jpg",2560,2289,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/04\/sage-grouse-beatbox-to-attract-a-mate-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/04\/sage-grouse-beatbox-to-attract-a-mate-300x268.jpg",300,268,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/04\/sage-grouse-beatbox-to-attract-a-mate-768x687.jpg",768,687,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/04\/sage-grouse-beatbox-to-attract-a-mate-1024x916.jpg",800,716,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/04\/sage-grouse-beatbox-to-attract-a-mate-1536x1373.jpg",1536,1373,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/04\/sage-grouse-beatbox-to-attract-a-mate-2048x1831.jpg",2048,1831,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The power of female choice means male greater sage-grouse must perform an \"absurd beatboxing routine\" to catch a hen's eye, as broadcaster and naturalist Lucy Cooke explains.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/26933"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}