"People don't always understand that when a bird forms a bond with you, it's actually a mate bond," says Jamie McLeod, who founded a sanctuary in California.
Humans, on the other hand, tend to form long-term mating bonds and thus may opt for younger mates who will produce more offspring over their lifetimes, the team reports in the 21 November issue of Current Biology.
Oxytocin is known to play a key role in social bonding: in monogamous prairie voles, for example, it helps mates bond, and in female rats it jumpstarts mothering behavior.
Young male wolves like OR7, which will turn 3 in mid-April, must leave the home range of their parents to find a female companion and reproduce because only the dominant pair in each wolf pack form a mating bond.
You have to say mating, not bonding, or you're a monster, right?
In fact, they were childhood mates who bonded over records and rode around together on Sumner's scooter.
Sofia Black-D'Elia, 19, who plays a lesbian cheerleader named Tea, said she and her cast mates quickly bonded while filming the series in Toronto last year.
Oxytocin plays important roles in social memory and behaviors dependent on social recognition, such as pair bonding, mate guarding, and parental care in rodents [ 2].
Behaviour related to mating and pair bonding is well marked and has been described in detail for several species, notably of herons.
Scientific study into mating and pair bonding behaviors leaves little alternative.
