A male, however, can increase his reproductive output by mating with many females.
Women could improve the quality of their babies by mating with multiple partners while fertile, researchers say.
Male chimps and baboons are prone to kill any infant they believe could not be theirs, so females try to blur paternity by mating with as many individuals as possible before each conception.
A recent study showed, for example, that populations of wild fish could, in theory, be wiped out by mating with certain kinds of genetically engineered fish, should they escape.
The kid, Tommy, has sustained himself over the decades by mating with the cloyingly cute local fauna and eating his children the inbred grotesqueness of whom is rendered with heart-stunning flair.
In another report in Science last week, researchers from Stanford and elsewhere reported that wolves and coyotes with dark coats may have originally gained a gene for darkness by mating with their humanized kin, dogs.
But a study published in the journal Biology Letters has found that some males will avoid becoming a post-coital meal by mating with immature females that are not yet experienced in eating their partners.
Explaining why Exelon has not invested more aggressively in new-energy technologies like windmills and solar cells, Mr. Rowe deadpanned: "A dinosaur cannot save itself from extinction by mating with a rodent".
Hermaphrodites fertilize their own eggs, but males can sire offspring only by mating with hermaphrodites.
Using computer modeling, Nielsen and his team found the only plausible explanation was that the ancestors of Tibetans and Han Chinese got the gene by mating with Denisovans.
This makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint: Surviving males could try to keep sowing their genetic oats by mating with other females.
