Reproduction - Male Mate Choice

    When the female chimpanzee begins to show her pregnancy, the male chimp becomes very possessive. A special ability that the male chimps obtain is that they can distinguish the fertile period of the female chimp. The male chimps also have the ability to gauge the fertility of a given female which can be inferred from the patterns of copulations. The frequency of copulations of male chimps increase as ovulation approaches which shows that the male chimps don’t act the same to females throughout their pregnancy. As fertilization and impregnation begin to increase, so does the copulations. This means that females that aren’t undergoing pregnancy are less sexually popular than females that are undergoing pregnancy.

    A characteristic of the male chimp when it comes to choosing a mate is choosing the older female. If it had a choice between a group of female chimps, the male chimp would choose the oldest. Another characteristic of the female that is preferred is her personality. Male chimps are interested in females that are more relaxed when the male approach them. They don’t prefer females that get shy or too excited. The males also like to choose females that they are unfamiliar with instead of ones who they have been with for a long time, which is kind of unique.