Female Lizards: Superbly Manipulative

sireenmalik writes "CNN is running a story, Battle of the sexes winner is a lizard. Now how many of you are being Lizarded like that? Guys take a break from your computers ... find out which 'fancy rocks' your girlfriend is thinking about?!?!? Now you know who really is the boss? ;)"

Comments

Guess the drugs just kicked in.

[sideshow]

Because in the four years I've been reading slashdot this writeup is the hardest to comprehend.

Female Humans: Superbly Manipulative

[Alethes]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In the eternal war between the sexes, the lady side-blotched lizard wins it all: she selects her many mates, decides where they'll live and even determines if they will have sons or daughters.

I know women like that.

From the article:

[Bobulusman]

"This is the ultimate example of a female having her cake and eating it too...It would be like a human female who marries a short, dumpy rich guy and then has an affair with a muscular 20-year-old to have a handsome son who grows up in a mansion and goes to the best schools."

A cool article, but that author spent entirely too much time thinging about that analogy.

I find the fact that the females seem to be able to decide which male to produce a certain gender with very fascinating. Either the article is over simplified, or these lizards can do some really neat stuff.

Re:From the article:

[nellardo]

This is the ultimate example of a female having her cake and eating it too...It would be like a human female who marries a short, dumpy rich guy and then has an affair with a muscular 20-year-old to have a handsome son who grows up in a mansion and goes to the best schools."

A cool article, but that author spent entirely too much time thinging about that analogy.

Watch the quote marks - the scientist spent too much time thinking up the analogy. The CNN science reporter had the good sense to pull the sound-bite and put it nice and early in the article.

Me, I'd point out that the incredulous tone of the scientist is just a bit too pandering to believe. It feeds right into multiple contradictory stereotypes - the gold-digging slut trophy wife is one, as is the equally ridiculuous and inaccurate (but more socially acceptable) stereotype of marriage as life-long romance for Happily Ever After.

Lots of animals have exhibited comparable behavior, on both sides of the gender divide. You don't have to go down to obscure lizard species and you don't have to write it off to human perversion/idiocy/unnaturalness. Chimps and bonobos do this. Gorillas do this. Wolves and lions do this. Both genders in a variety of species try to gather exclusive groups of mates under their own control, and both genders "sneak around" outside these ostensibly socially sanctioned constructions.

It's all bad

[tedDancin]

"It appears to be ... an incredibly refined ability of the female to manipulate the investment of her partners"

I knew women these days were reptile-like, but god damn..
*hears whip crack and yelling.. "get back in the kitchen and make me some pie!"*

Submitter's comments

[Violet Null]

Come on? No fair running the submission through the questionizer filter?!?!?!? Next thing you now, they'll do it to comments, too?

Oh well? At least everything's spelled correctly?

nothing new here

[rizzo420]

it's commonly known in most of the natural world (natural world being that world not including human beings), that the female is usually the primary individual in most animal relationships. the males always have to compete for the female, but ultimately she decides which one to mate with based on which one "seems" to be the most "fit". that's usually determined by mating rituals and displays. most of these rituals actually prove to the female that they are very fit. so this isn't some completely new discovery, although it seems that this lizard takes it to a new extreme.

Re:I was told

[logophage]

i'm sure you meant "you're right" but maybe you left out the beginning "arrgghh!! look out to your right." i'm sure that's an oft-heard declaimation.