In the eye of the beholder: visual mate choice lateralization in a polymorphic songbird.

ABSTRACT: Birds choose mates on the basis of colour, song and body size, but little is known about the mechanisms underlying these mating decisions. Reports that zebra finches prefer to view mates with the right eye during courtship, and that immediate early gene expression associated with courtship behaviour is lateralized in their left hemisphere suggest that visual mate choice itself may be lateralized. To test this hypothesis, we used the Gouldian finch, a polymorphic species in which individuals exhibit strong, adaptive visual preferences for mates of their own head colour. Black males were tested in a mate-choice apparatus under three eye conditions: left-monocular, right-monocular and binocular. We found that black male preference for black females is so strongly lateralized in the right-eye/

SUBMITTER: Templeton JJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3497153 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature