Display: Appearance, posture and behaviour in the animal kingdom by Steve Parker

Author:Steve Parker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ivy Press
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE HOVER DANCE DISPLAY

The male pin-tailed whydah spends much time hover-dancing in front of females, his amazing tail streamers (trailing feathers) waving in the breeze and in the downdraft from his flapping wings.

The enormity of the male’s tail compared to his body is probably an example of the evolutionary process known as sexual selection (see here). This describes how, up to a point, ‘bigger is better’ for an anatomical feature that attracts the opposite sex, before it becomes too much of a hindrance to survival. Away from the breeding season, the male pin-tail moults to look very similar to the female, including a more normally proportioned tail.

The origin of the name ‘pin-tailed’ whydah is unclear. A leading explanation is that the long tail feathers were pinned onto the hats of human widows for their spouses’ funerals. The feathers, being black but also graceful and elegant, were especially appropriate to show off the widow’s social status and the wealth she had inherited.

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