Can being smart get you lay ? muckle of humans lean intelligence among the thing they ’re calculate for in a mate , but smart people seem to end up single as much as anyone else . biologist have sought evidence in animals , but the examples they ’ve institute have been indirect and undecided to question . Now , however , we study that in at least one species , females prefer males who ache enough to solve problems .
Professor Carel ten Cateof Leiden University , Netherlands ground the value of intelligence in the sexual union market by showing female budgerigar become more attract to males when they see them solving difficult problems .
Cate put 17 distaff budgerigar in private cages , with two males in neighboring cages . Each female would size up the males , and spend most of her time on the side of the John Milton Cage Jr. close to whichever she preferred . The chosen male person might have been feeling smug at this point , even if he could n’t get to his courtesan through the prevention , but Cate had a equipment in store . He removed both males and learn the non - preferred one how to access food within a closed petri bag and a box . The box was a particular challenge , since it take on three steps to open up .
Both set of males were then recall to the distaff - adjacent cage and given the container . The educate male put what they had learned to use , while the untrained ones stagger . After watch this come , Cate reported inScience , the females changed their minds . When the previously pooh-pooh Male enter the container , they got not only food , but a lot more female attention .
Previous study have revealed a distaff preference in some metal money for males with orotund brain , along with other characteristics that are probably indicative of intelligence . Nevertheless , all these cases have alternative explanations , with the females appeal to something else that happens to come as a software program with smarts . By play a joke on the females into recollect the males they ’d initially rejected were smart , Cate get around that problem .
Nevertheless , Cate was piercing to eliminate other interpretation . Perhaps the female hang out with the trouble - solving male person not because they wanted to copulate with them , but because they wanted to teach their tricks . To test this , the experiment was echo , but with all - female trios . Once again the middle shuttle powerfully preferred one neighbor , but this did n’t change when the other one show off new - found problem - solving attainment .
Cate interpreted this as indicating both straightness in the tryout budgies , and that trouble solving was watch as aphrodisiacal , rather than something to be appraise in ally . If this is accepted , it is evidence for the hypothesis dating back to Darwin that rising intelligence is in enceinte part a production of needing to strike mate .
