麻豆社

In a few species of bird the males do not compete, but collaborate to impress the females. With blue manakins, for example, one male will be the team leader and he will call to summon the other members. In front of a female, they will do a group dance, jumping and flying about a branch. If she is sufficiently impressed then she will mate with the captain. But why would the rest of the team help him? The answer is that the assistants know that if anything happens to the captain then one of them will inherit his position. Once they captain is happy that the team have performed satisfactorily, he dismisses the rest of the team with another special call. If he mates with the female, she will fly off and he will carry on dancing for mates, never knowing his offspring.