Pretty Fly For A Dance Fly

Fake Love Tokens Fool Flies
By Jennifer Viegas

Jan. 11, 2005 — Females among many insects and animals, including humans, enjoy receiving gifts during courtship, but a new study on flies reveals that males can woo their intendeds with worthless, fake love tokens, even if such cheating is otherwise undocumented for the species.

By the time the female fly realizes her lover is a cheapskate and beats him off with her wings, the male already has mated with her and leaves with his faux present to find another partner.

The finding, published in the new issue of Current Biology, suggests that male cheaters throughout the animal kingdom easily can fool present-loving females into affairs that could yield offspring carrying the male's genes.

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This article is a 'must read'. It's a very intriguing article and I found myself cracking up while reading it.