Mammals, like most living organisms, overproduce offspring to opportunistically fill gaps in the environment caused by natural disasters or other species' demise. While this is vital for a species to survive, the harsh reality is that most animals live on the edge of starvation. To us, this may seem cruel, but those "extra" offspring, destined to starve, will leap into a gap created by a sudden surplus of food.
But why do animals keep having offspring, knowing that many will starve? It's because they are governed by instinct and don't see the relationship between mating and offspring.
For instance, in some primate species like chimpanzees and bonobos, females display physical changes during ovulation that signal their readiness to mate, such as swelling of the genital area and changes in skin color. Similarly, in some deer species like the white-tailed deer, females display a "flag" of white fur on their tails during estrus, which signals their sexual receptivity to males.
However, in other mammal species like rodents and some carnivores, there may be little or no outward sign of sexual receptivity. In these species, males may use other cues like scent or vocalizations to detect the readiness of females to mate.
In some species like bats and some marine mammals, the timing of female receptivity may be synchronized with environmental or seasonal cues, rather than being signaled directly by the female. In such cases, males may need to search for receptive females using other cues like location or vocalizations.
Overall, the type and nature of sexual signals used by female mammals to indicate their readiness to mate can vary widely, influenced by various biological and environmental factors.
However, when it comes to humans, we don't like to see babies starve, and many of us take measures to avoid unwanted pregnancy. As a result, nature has made mating very pleasurable for humans and hidden a female's susceptibility to conceiving. If a "flag" stood up like a deer, guaranteeing that success would be assured only on that one day, and the rest of the month would be safe, the human population would never have grown to billions. "Just this once" is too easy to rationalize in the heat of the moment when we don't know for sure.
I introduced this concept in the book "In the Beginning..." at the earliest stages of human existence. Intelligent humans would clearly see the connection between mating and babies, and teenage girls would hardly want to start having babies with a whole exciting world to explore. I see this as another case of our primitive instincts at odds with our intelligence. Clearly we did not evolve this way. Instead, we are trying to work around what we inherited from our primitive beginnings.
Kommentare