Mating Skills Improve With Age: Research

A new study has revealed that older male nightingales are far better at wooing their female counterparts, than their young competitors. The research found that older nightingales are more capable of having successful courtships, than their younger competitors or even any other investigated bird, because of their amazing range of up to 100 trills a second, making them the fastest singers, the Independent reported.

Their dazzling skills, supported by a playlist of about 200 songs, means that they are most likely to be seen as better mates by young trill-seeking females.

The researchers said that singing so many trills at peak frequency requires a lot of physical effort and, as a result, it has evolved as a sign on fitness.

Zoologist Dr Valentin Amrhein, who led the study at the University of Basel, Switzerland, said that females could assess the age of the male singer by the trill rate, and mate preferably with older ones.

Amrhein asserted that female choose older males as they have more experience with defending their territory or with raising young, and therefore have a better reproductive performance.

The study is published in the Journal of Avian Biology.

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Source-ANI