Why Do Males and Females Look Different?

[Klipspringer]

Picture a lion: The male has a luxuriant mane, the female doesn’t. This is a classic example of what biologists call sexual dimorphism - the two sexes of the same species exhibit differences in form or behaviour. And it begs the question of why sex differences (in size, ornamentation, colour etc) exist.
As vertebrates, we humans are most familiar with mating systems in which males are larger or somehow stronger than females. But this is a bias. There is just no one way of being a male or a female animal.


Let's look into this fascinating condition and provide examples of different males and females in African mammals, birds, reptiles, spiders, insects and explore why they are different.


Please post some examples and we can try to explain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism


Actually the contributions of nan and Alf prompted the idea for this month's topic:

you think is the same... male and female

Alf came up with this female beetle



and the male looks like this

11.jpg (37 KiB) Viewed 1186 times

[Richprins]

Very interesting indeed, Klippies!

[Klipspringer]

Very interesting indeed, Klippies!

Any idea as to why the male mantis has fully developed wings and the female doesn't?

[Richprins]

The male has to fly and support the family?

[Klipspringer]

The male has to fly and support the family?

mantid parents don't feed their young.

However - males do fly and females don't. So what for do females have wings then and why do only males fly?

In many mantid species the females are also too heavy for flight apart from being wingless or having only short wings. BTW: Youngs of both sexes don't have wings either.

[nan]

The male has to fly and support the family?

mantid parents don't feed their young.

However - males do fly and females don't. So what for do females have wings then and why do only males fly?

In many mantid species the females are also too heavy for flight apart from being wingless or having only short wings. BTW: Youngs of both sexes don't have wings either.

to escape female who would like to eat them

[Klipspringer]

to escape female who would like to eat them

Brilliant idea But that does not work for the males, as they can not open and unfold the wings quickly, they are slow to take off like beetles. A substantial number of males get eaten indeed before during or after mating

But male and female encounters is a good idea

[Richprins]

To catch the females for mating?

[Lisbeth]

I agree on that one

[Klipspringer]

To catch the females for mating?

Almost, but they don't catch the females

Before you can mate, you have to ....?