Sex, long life, and cooperative breeding

November 18, 2015 1:47 PM

How do you get both cooperation and promiscuity, a rare combination in a world dominated by selfish genes? The key, it appears - at least in birds - is long life. "Promiscuous cooperative species are exceptionally long lived."
posted by clawsoon (2 comments total)

Always knew there was just something, hmm ahh special, about Big Bird.
posted by sammyo at 2:30 PM on November 18, 2015

It's very cool to watch the young neighborhood corvids go from screechy little babies to clumsy adolescents with silly foraging ideas -- unfortunately they get hard to tell from their parents after that.

Add "here's to" and the post title is a good start on a New Years toast.
posted by Matt Oneiros at 5:41 PM on November 18, 2015 [1 favorite]