Sexiness

I see that sexiness has been alluded to in the last few posts, so I thought, "Let's start a trend!"

'Sexiness' is sometimes hard to tell apart from 'toughness'. For example, these guys here are Red-winged Black birds (Agelaius phoeniceus, to be exact). At the moment they're calling and showing off they're red shoulders. In this case, the shoulders definitely are telling other males to stay away, but they may also be telling ladies "Here I am, and I'm sooooo sexy!" These aren't always different. However, it could also be that the shoulders talk to the guys and the calling talks to the ladies.

More fun:

Searcy, W.A. 1990. Species recognition of song by female red-winged blackbirds. Animal Behaviour 40:1119-1127.

Roskaft, E.R. and S. Rohwer. 1987. An experimental study of the function of the red epaulettes and the black body colour of male red-winged blackbirds. Animal Behaviour 35:1070-1077.