Consistent with the hypothesis that optimally sized spores become ready to mate sooner, we found a greater frequency of assortative matings between optimally sized cells on both media.
This has the effect of shortening the time before the cubs' mothers are ready to mate again.
When the female is ready to mate, she exposes the glands and disperses the pheromone into the air.
The available females are quickly spoken for, so the males tend to zero in on females that are just barely ready to mate, or not even — the tweens.
They discovered, as they report in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, that male hyraxes are doing far more than just repetitively communicating that they are ready to mate.
The female's genital area may be swollen during estrus, and she may show by a variety of behavioral signals that she is ready to mate.
It used to be thought this was males fighting; now we know it is females who are not ready to mate, giving males the brush-off.
They have knocked down some prurient myths: that these clinics were Nazi bordellos, stocked with flaxen-haired breeders ready to mate with SS men.
"They look like they were getting ready to mate," he said just before he climbed over the slatted fence to grab a snake's tail.
When the virgin queen is ready to mate, she leaves the hive and shoots up into the sky, Mr. Breland said.
