The aardwolf, Proteles cristata, is a highly specialized myrmecophagous carnivore that feeds almost exclusively on termites of the genus Trinervitermes. Here we report data from an ongoing analysis of aardwolf diet, where we documented remains of sun spiders and scorpions in aardwolf scats. Although the prevalence of these items was low, with sun spiders recorded in nine and scorpion remains in one of 246 scats, our observations suggest that aardwolves opportunistically feed on larger prey than previously thought. However, our observations do not suggest that aardwolves utilized these large prey items as alternatives to their main food resource during periods of food scarcity. Therefore, we suggest that the adaptive advantages of such opportunism may be small, but that the observed behavioural plasticity could be advantageous under specific environmental conditions and therefore is maintained as a behavioural trait.
Many evolutionary biologists argue that human sexual behaviour can be studied in exactly the same way as that of other species. Many sociologists argue that social influences effectively obscure, and are more important than, a reductionist biological approach to human sexual behaviour. Here,we authors attempt to provide a broad introduction to human sexual behaviour from a biological standpoint and to indicate where the ambiguous areas are. We outline the evolutionary selective pressures that are likely to have influenced human behaviour and mate choice in the past and in the present; ecological features that influence such things as degree of parental care and polygamy; and the associated physiology of human sexuality. Then they end with a discussion of ‘abnormal’ sexuality.
Most polygynous male mammals exhibit little or no parental care or involvement raising young. Instead, they invest indirectly in their own morphological and physiological attributes which enhance their chance of reproduction. Such secondary morphological sex traits may contribute to differences in the burrow architecture of fossorial mammals, such as the Cape dune mole-rat, Bathyergus suillus. Indeed, little is known about the seasonal changes in burrow architecture or differences in burrow configuration may differ between the sexes of subterranean African mole-rats (Bathyergidae). We excavated burrow systems of male and female B. suillus during the summer and the winter to investigate whether male burrow architecture reflected putative mate-seeking behaviour. We consider burrow geometry in response to mating strategies. Male burrow systems explored the environment more efficiently than females. This is presumably because of the increase in associated energetic costs of being a large male. Males produce more mounds indicating territorial behaviour even when it is energetically costly to dispose of soil onto the surface when the soil is less friable during the summer. Overall tunnel dimensions did not differ between the sexes. It appears that a change in season does not affect the geometry of the burrow system or tunnel dimensions in a climatically buffered environment.
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