Breeding pair is a pair of animals which cooperate over time to produce offspring with some form of a bond between the individuals. For example, many birds mate for a breeding season or sometimes for life. They may share some or all of the tasks involved: building a nest, incubating the eggs and feeding and protecting the young. The term is not generally used when a male has a harem (zoology) of females, such as with mountain gorillas.
True breeding pairs are usually found only in vertebrates, but there are notable exceptions, such as the Lord Howe Island stick insect. True breeding pairs are rare in amphibians or reptiles, but fairly common with fish (e.g. discus) and especially birds. Breeding pair arrangements are rare in mammals, where the prevailing patterns are either that the male and female only meet for copulation (e.g. brown bear) or that dominant males have a harem (zoology) of females (e.g. walrus).
Other articles related to "pairs, breeding pair, breeding":
... Although social animals, single wolves or mated pairs typically have higher success rates in hunting than do large packs, with single wolves having occasionally been observed to kill large prey such as moose ... The breeding pair typically monopolizes food in order to continue producing pups ... The breeding pair typically eats first, though as it is they who usually work the hardest in killing prey, they may rest after a long hunt and allow the rest of the family to eat unmolested ...
... Breeding can be achieved with very little effort and no specific requirements are needed for breeding purposes ... are maintained at a desirable high quality, a breeding pair of such fish will readily spawn ... To enhance the likelihood of acquiring a breeding pair, purchase several healthy and active juveniles at a young age (between 6 -10) and grow these specimens until sexual maturity ...
... Breeding can be achieved with very little effort and no specific requirements are needed for such purposes ... As long as water conditions are maintained at a desirable high quality, a breeding pair of jaguar cichlids will readily spawn ... To enhance the likelihood of acquiring a breeding pair, purchase several healthy and active juveniles at a young age (between 6 and 10) and grow these ...
Famous quotes containing the words pair and/or breeding:
“The works of women are symbolical.
We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight,
Producing what? A pair of slippers, sir,
To put on when you’re weary or a stool
To stumble over and vex you ... “curse that stool!”
Or else at best, a cushion, where you lean
And sleep, and dream of something we are not,
But would be for your sake. Alas, alas!
This hurts most, this ... that, after all, we are paid
The worth of our work, perhaps.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
“Not everyone knows how to be silent or to leave in good time. It happens that even people of good breeding fail to notice that their presence provokes in the weary or preoccupied host a feeling akin to hatred, and that this feeling is tensely concealed and covered up with lies.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)