Problem-solving males become more attractive to female budgerigars

Abstract

Who's a clever boy then? There is considerable value in choosing a smart mate. The suggestion that mate choice has thus shaped the evolution of cognition has been around since Darwin's time, but testing this hypothesis is difficult. Chen et al. found that female budgerigars shifted their preference to previously nonpreferred males after these males demonstrated the ability to solve a problem that stumped the originally preferred males (see the Perspective by Striedter). This preference shift was specific to problem-solving and to choosing males. Science , this issue p. 166 ; see also p. 120