Female Japanese quail that ‘eavesdrop’ on fighting males prefer losers to winners

In a series of four experiments, we examined the relationship between male dominance and female preference in Japanese quail, Coturnix japonica. Female quail that had watched an aggressive interaction between a pair of males preferred the loser of an encounter to its winner. This superficially perverse female preference for losers may be explained by the strong correlation between the success of a male in aggressive interactions with other …